My 


17 


THE   BOOKS  OF  ESTHER 
JOB,    PROVERBS,    AND 

ECCLESIASTES 


BY 

ALEXANDER    MACLAREN 

D.D.,    LiTT.l). 

\ac\  av 

\\o\v 

NEW  YORK  ^ 
A.  C.  ARMSTRONG  AND  SON 

3  &  5  WEST  EIGHTEENTH  STREET 

LONDON:  HODDER  AND  STOUGHTON 

MCMVUI 


A, 


^' 


u. 


CONTENTS 

THE  BOOK  OF  ESTHER 

PA«B 

The  Net  Spread  (Esther  iii.  1-11)     .             ...  1 

Esther's  Venture  (Esther  iv.  10-17;  V.  1-3)             .            .  6 

MoRDECAi  AND  ESTHER  (Esther  iv.  14)          ,             •             ,  14 

The  Net  Broken  (Esther  viii.  3-8, 15-17)      .             t             »  2S 

THE  BOOK  OF  JOB 

Sorrow  that  Worships  (Job  i.  21)  .  ,  .29 

The   Peaceable  Fruits   of  Sorrows  Rightly  Bornb 

(Job  V.  17-27)   ......       33 

Two  Kinds  op  tIopb  (Job  viii.  14 ;  Romans  v.  5)     .  .40 

Job's  Question,  Jesus'  Answer  (Job  xiv.  14 ;  John  xi.  25, 26)       43 
Knowledge  and  Peace  (Job  xxii.  21)         .  •  .       49 

V 


vi  CONTENTS 

PAOB 

What  Lifb  may  be  Made  (Job  xxii.  26-29)  ,  ,       53 

'  The  End  of  the  Lord  '  (Job  xlii.  1-10)       .  «  .63 


THE  PROVERBS 

A  Young  Man's  Best  Counsellor  (Proverbs  i,  1-19)  .       71 

Wisdom's  Call  (Proverbs  i.  20-33)    .  ,  ,  .77 

The  Secret  of  Well-being  (Proverbs  iii.  1-10)      .  .       84 

The  Gifts  of  Heavenly  Wisdom  (Proverbs  iii.  11-24)  ,       88 

The  Two  Paths  (Proverbs  iv.  10-19)  ,  .  .96 

Monotony  and  Crises  (Proverbs  iv.  12) '    ,  ,  .      101 

From  Dawn  to  Noon  (Proverbs  iv.  18 ;  Matt.  xiii.  43)  .      108 

Keeping  and  Kept  (Proverbs  iv.  23 ;  1  Peter  i.  5)    .  .     116 

The  Cords  of  Sin  (Proverbs  v.  22)  .  ,  .  .      123 

Wisdom's  Gift  (Proverbs  viii.  21)     .  ,  .  .      130 

Wisdom  and  Christ  (Proverbs  viii.  30,  31)  .  .      136 

The  Two-fold  Aspect   of  the  Divine  Working  (Pro- 
verbs x.  29)     .  .  .  .  .  .143 

The  Many-sided  Contrast  of  Wisdom  and  Folly  (Pro- 
verbs xii.  1-15)  .....      155 

The  Poor  Rich  and  the  Rich  Poor  (Proverbs  xiii.  7)       .     163 


CONTENTS  vii 


PAOR 


The  Tillage  of  the  Poor  (Proverbs  xiii.  23)          .             .  173 

Sin  the  Mocker  (Proverbs  xiv.  9)  .  .  .  .181 

Hollow  Laughter,  Solid  Joy  (Prov.  xiv.  13 ;  John  xv.  11)  187 

Satisfied  from  Self  (Proverbs  xiv.  14)      .             .             .  191 

What  I  Think  of  Myself  and  what  God  Thinks  op 

Me  (Proverbs  xvi.  2)  .             .             ,             ,             •  195 

A  Bundle  of  Proverbs  (Proverbs  xvi.  22-33)         .             .  204 

Two  Fortresses  (Proverbs  xviii.  10, 11)       ,             .             .  210 

A  String  of  Pearls  (Proverbs  xx.  1-7)       .             .             ,  220 

The  Sluggard  in  Harvest  (Proverbs  xx.  4)           .             .  226 

Bread  and  Gravel  (Proverbs  xx.  17)          .             .             .  236 

A  Condensed  Guide  for  Life  (Proverbs  xxiii.  15-23)         .  240 

The  Afterwards  and  Our  Hope  (Proverbs  xxiii,  17, 18)  .  247 

The  Portrait  of  a  Drunkard  (Proverbs  xxiii.  29-35)        .  256 

The  Crime  of  Negligence  (Proverbs  xxiv.  11, 12)              ,  263 

The  Sluggard's  Garden  (Proverbs  xxiv.  30,  31)     .  .289 

An  Unwalled  City  (Proverbs  xxv.  28)       .             .             .  274 

The  Weight  of  Sand  (Proverbs  xxvii.  3)  .             .             .  279 

Portrait  of  a  Matron  (Proverbs  xxxi.  10-31)         .             .  288 


viu  CONTENTS 

EOCLESIASTES ;    OR,  THE  PREACHER 

PAC» 

What  Passes  and  What  Abides  (Eccles.  i.  4;  1  John 

ii.  17)  .  .  .  .  ,  .  .297 

The  Past  and  the  Futttbe  (Eccles.  i.  9 ;  1  Peter  iv.  2,  3)  .     307 

Two  Views  of  Life  (Eccles.  i.  13 ;  Hebrews  xii.  10)  .     317 

•A  Time  TO  Plant' (Eccles.  iii.  2)     .             .            ,  .323 

Etebnity  in  the  Heart  (Eccles.  iii.  H)      •             •  •     334 

Lessons  fob  Worship  and  fob  Work  (Eccles.  v.  1-12)  .     350 

Naked  or  Clothed  ?  (Eccles.  v.  15 ;  Rev.  xiv.  13)    .  .     358 

Finis  Coronat  Opus  (Eccles.  vii.  8)              »             ..  ,363 

Misused  Respite  (Eccles.  viii.  11)    .            »            •  •     367 

Fences  and  Serpents  (Eccles.  x.  8)              .             .  .     372 

The  Way  to  the  City  (Eccles.  x.  15)          .             .  •     381 

A  New  Year's  Sermon  to  the  Young  (Eccles.  xi.  9 ;  xii.  1)     391 

The  Conclusion  of  the  Matteb  (Eccles.  xii.  1-7, 13  14)  .     402 


THE  BOOK  OF  ESTHER 

THE  NET  SPREAD 

'  After  these  thingrs  did  king  Ahasuerus  promote  Haman  the  son  of  Hammedatlia 
the  Agagite,  and  advanced  him,  and  set  his  seat  above  all  the  princes  that  were 
with  him,  2.  And  all  the  king's  servants,  that  were  in  the  king's  gate,  bowed, 
and  reverenced  Haman :  for  the  king  had  so  commanded  concerning  him.  But 
Mordecai  bowed  not,  nor  did  him  reverence.  3.  Then  the  king's  servants  which 
were  in  the  king's  gate,  said  unto  Mordecai,  Why  transgressest  thou  the  king's 
commandment?  i.  Now  it  came  to  pass,  when  they  spake  daily  unto  him,  and  he 
hearkened  not  unto  them,  that  they  told  Haman,  to  see  whether  Mordecai's 
matters  would  stand:  for  be  had  told  them  that  he  was  a  Jew.  5.  And  when 
Haman  saw  that  Mordecai  bowed  not,  nor  did  him  reverence,  then  was  Haman 
full  of  wrath.  6.  And  he  thought  scorn  to  lay  hands  on  Mordecai  alone ;  for  they 
had  showed  him  the  people  of  Mordecai :  wherefore  Haman  sought  to  destroy  all 
the  Jews  that  were  throughout  the  whole  kingdom  of  Ahasuerus,  even  the  people 
of  Mordecai.  7.  In  the  first  month,  that  is,  the  month  Nisan,  in  the  twelfth  year 
of  king  Ahasuerus,  they  cast  Pur,  that  is,  the  lot,  before  Haman  from  day  to  day, 
and  from  month  to  month,  to  the  twelfth  month,  that  is,  the  month  Adar. 
8.  And  Haman  said  unto  king  Ahasuerus,  There  is  a  certain  people  scattered 
abroad  and  dispersed  among  the  people  in  all  the  provinces  of  thy  kingdom ;  and 
their  laws  are  diverse  from  all  people ;  neither  keep  they  the  king's  laws :  there- 
fore it  is  not  for  the  king's  profit  to  suffer  them,  9.  If  it  please  the  king,  let  it  be 
written  that  they  may  be  destroyed :  and  I  will  pay  ten  thousand  talents  of  silver 
to  the  hands  of  those  that  have  the  charge  of  the  business,  to  bring  it  into  the 
king's  treasuries.  10.  And  the  king  took  his  ring  from  his  hand,  and  gave  it  unto 
Haman  the  son  of  Hammedatha  the  Agagite,  the  Jews'  enemy.  11.  And  the  king 
said  unto  Haman,  The  silver  is  given  to  thee,  the  people  also,  to  do  with  them  as 
it  seemeth  good  to  thee.'— Esther  iii.  1-11. 

The  stage  of  this  passage  is  filled  by  three  strongly 
marked  and  strongly  contrasted  figures :  Mordecai, 
Hainan,  and  Ahasuerus;  a  sturdy  nonconformist,  an 
arrogant  and  vindictive  minister  of  state,  and  a  despotic 
and  careless  king.  These  three  are  the  visible  persons, 
but  behind  them  is  an  unseen  and  unnamed  Presence, 
the  God  of  Israel,  who  still  protects  His  exiled  people. 

We  note,  first,  the  sturdy  nonconformist.  *  The  rev- 
erence '  which  the  king  had  commanded  his  servants  to 
show  to  Haman  was  not  simply  a  sign  of  respect,  but 
an    act   of  worship.     Eastern    adulation    regarded    a 

▲ 


2  THE  BOOK  OF  ESTHER       [ch.iii. 

monarch  as  in  some  sense  a  god,  and  we  know  that 
divine  honours  were  in  later  times  paid  to  Roman  em- 
perors, and  many  Christians  martyred  for  refusing  to 
render  them.  The  command  indicates  that  Ahasuerus 
desired  Haman  to  be  regarded  as  his  representative, 
and  possessing  at  least  some  reflection  of  godhead 
from  him.  European  ambassadors  to  Eastern  courts 
have  often  refused  to  prostrate  themselves  before  the 
monarch  on  the  ground  of  its  being  degradation  to 
their  dignity ;  but  Mordecai  stood  erect  while  the 
crowd  of  servants  lay  flat  on  their  faces,  as  the  great 
man  passed  through  the  gate,  because  he  would  have 
no  share  in  an  act  of  worship  to  any  but  Jehovah. 
He  might  have  compromised  with  conscience,  and 
found  some  plausible  excuses  if  he  had  wished.  He 
could  have  put  his  own  private  interpretation  on  the 
prostration,  and  said  to  himself,  '  I  have  nothing  to  do 
with  the  meaning  that  others  attach  to  bowing  before 
Haman.  I  mean  by  it  only  due  honour  to  the  second 
man  in  the  kingdom.'  But  the  monotheism  of  his  race 
was  too  deeply  ingrained  in  him,  and  so  he  kept  *  a  stiff 
backbone '  and  '  bowed  not  down.' 

That  his  refusal  was  based  on  religious  scruples  is 
the  natural  inference  from  his  having  told  his  fellow- 
porters  that  he  was  a  Jew.  That  fact  would  explain 
his  attitude,  but  would  also  isolate  him  still  more. 
His  obstinacy  piqued  them,  and  they  reported  his 
contumacy  to  the  great  man,  thus  at  once  gratifying 
personal  dislike,  racial  hatred,  and  religious  antagonism, 
and  recommending  themselves  to  Haman  as  solicitous 
for  his  dignity.  We  too  are  sometimes  placed  in  cir- 
cumstances where  we  are  tempted  to  take  part  in  what 
may  be  called  constructive  idolatry.  There  arise,  in 
our  necessary  co-operation  with    those    who    do  not 


vs.  1-11]  THE  NET  SPREAD  3 

share  in  our  faith,  occasions  when  we  are  expected  to 
unite  in  acts  which  we  are  thought  very  straitlaced 
for  refusing  to  do,  but  which,  conscience  tells  us, 
cannot  be  done  without  practical  disloyalty  to  Jesus 
Christ.  Whenever  that  inner  voice  says  'Don't,'  we 
must  disregard  the  persistent  solicitations  of  others, 
and  be  ready  to  be  singular,  and  run  any  risk  rather 
than  comply.  '  So  did  not  I,  because  of  the  fear  of 
God,'  has  to  be  our  motto,  whatever  fellow-servants 
may  say.  The  gate  of  Ahasuerus's  palace  was  not  a 
favourable  soil  for  the  growth  of  a  devout  soul,  but 
flowers  can  bloom  on  dunghills,  and  there  have  been 
<  saints '  in  '  Caesar's  household.' 

Haman  is  a  sharp  contrast  to  Mordecai.  He  is  the 
type  of  the  unworthy  characters  that  climb  or  crawl 
to  power  in  a  despotic  monarchy,  vindictive,  arrogant, 
cunning,  totally  oblivious  of  the  good  of  the  subjects, 
using  his  position  for  his  own  advantage,  and  fero- 
ciously cruel.  He  had  naturally  not  noticed  the  one 
erect  figure  among  the  crowd  of  abject  ones,  but  the 
insignificant  Jew  became  important  when  pointed  out. 
If  he  had  bowed,  he  would  have  been  one  more  nobody, 
but  his  not  bowing  made  him  somebody  who  had  to  be 
crushed.  The  childish  burst  of  passion  is  very  charac- 
teristic, and  not  less  true  to  life  is  the  extension  of  the 
anger  and  thirst  for  vengeance  to  'all  the  Jews  that 
were  throughout  the  whole  kingdom  of  Ahasuerus.' 
They  were  'the  people  of  Mordecai,'  and  that  was 
enough.  '  He  thought  scorn  to  lay  hands  on  Mordecai 
alone.'  What  a  perverted  notion  of  personal  dignity 
which  thought  the  sacrifice  of  the  one  offender  beneath 
it,  and  could  only  be  satisfied  by  a  blood-bath  into 
which  a  nation  should  be  plunged!  Such  an  extreme 
of  frantic  lust  for  murder  is  only  possible  in  such  a 


4  THE  BOOK  OF  ESTHER       [ch.  iii. 

state  as  Ahasuerus's  Persia,  but  the  prostitution  of 
public  position  to  personal  ends,  and  the  adoption  of 
political  measures  at  the  bidding  of  wounded  vanity, 
and  to  gratify  blind  hatred  of  a  race,  is  possible  still, 
and  it  becomes  all  Christian  men  to  use  their  influence 
that  the  public  acts  of  their  nation  shall  be  clear  of 
that  taint. 

Haman  was  as  superstitious  as  cruel,  and  so  he 
sought  for  auguries  from  heaven  for  his  hellish  pur- 
pose, and  cast  the  lot  to  find  the  favourable  day  for 
bringing  it  about.  He  is  not  the  only  one  who  has 
sought  divine  approval  for  wicked  public  acts.  Religion 
has  been  used  to  varnish  many  a  crime,  and  Te  Deums 
sung  for  many  a  victory  which  was  little  better  than 
Haman's  plot. 

The  crafty  denunciation  of  the  Jews  to  the  king  is  a 
good  specimen  of  the  way  in  which  a  despot  is  hood- 
winked by  his  favourites,  and  made  their  tool.  It  was, 
no  doubt,  true  that  the  Jews'  laws  were  '  diverse  from 
those  of  every  people,'  but  it  was  not  true  that  they 
did  not '  keep  the  king's  laws,'  except  in  so  far  as  these 
required  worship  of  other  gods.  In  all  their  long  dis- 
persion they  have  been  remarkable  for  two  things,— 
their  tenacious  adherence  to  the  Law,  so  far  as  possible 
in  exile,  and  their  obedience  to  the  law  of  the  country  of 
their  sojourn.  No  doubt,  the  exiles  in  Persian  territory 
presented  the  same  characteristics.  But  Haman  has 
had  many  followers  in  resenting  the  distinctiveness  of 
the  Jew,  and  charging  on  them  crimes  of  which  they 
were  innocent.  From  Mordecai  onwards  it  has  been 
so,  and  Europe  is  to-day  disgraced  by  a  crusade  against 
them  less  excusable  than  Haman's.  Hatred  still  masks 
itself  under  the  disguise  of  political  expediency,  and 
says, '  It  is  not  for  the  king's  profit  to  suffer  them.' 


Ts.1-11]  THE  NET  SPREAD  5 

But  the  true  half  of  the  charge  was  a  eulogium,  for  it 
implied  that  the  scattered  exiles  were  faithful  to  God's 
laws,  and  were  marked  off  by  their  lives.  That  ought 
to  be  true  of  professing  Christians.  They  should  obvi- 
ously be  living  by  other  principles  than  the  world 
adopts.  The  enemy's  charge  '  shall  turn  unto  you 
for  a  testimony.'  Happy  shall  we  be  if  observers  are 
prompted  to  say  of  us  that '  our  laws  are  diverse '  from 
those  of  ungodly  men  around  us  ! 

The  great  bribe  which  Haman  offered  to  the  king  is 
variously  estimated  as  equal  to  from  three  to  four 
millions  sterling.  He,  no  doubt,  reckoned  on  making 
more  than  that  out  of  the  confiscation  of  Jewish 
property.  That  such  an  offer  should  have  been  made 
by  the  chief  minister  to  the  king,  and  that  for  such  a 
purpose,  reveals  a  depth  of  corruption  which  would  be 
incredible  if  similar  horrors  were  not  recorded  of  other 
Eastern  despots.  But  with  Turkey  still  astonishing 
the  world,  no  one  can  call  Haman's  offer  too  atrocious 
to  be  true. 

Ahasuerus  is  the  vain- glorious  king  known  to  us  as 
Xerxes.  His  conduct  in  the  affair  corresponds  well 
enough  with  his  known  character.  The  lives  of  thou- 
sands of  law-abiding  subjects  are  tossed  to  the  favourite 
without  inquiry  or  hesitation.  He  does  not  even  ask 
the  name  of  the  '  certain  people,'  much  less  require 
proof  of  the  charge  against  them.  The  insanity  of 
weakening  his  empire  by  killing  so  many  of  its  inhabit- 
ants does  not  strike  him,  nor  does  he  ever  seem  to  think 
that  he  has  duties  to  those  under  his  rule.  Careless  of 
the  sanctity  of  human  life,  too  indolent  to  take  trouble 
to  see  things  with  his  own  eyes,  apparently  without 
the  rudiments  of  the  idea  of  justice,  he  wallowed  in  a 
sty  of  self-indulgence,  and,  while  greedy  of  adulation 


6  THE  BOOK  OF  ESTHER       [ch.  iv. 

and  the  semblance  of  power,  let  the  reality  slip  from 
his  hands  into  those  of  the  favourite,  who  played  on 
his  vices  as  on  an  instrument,  and  pulled  the  strings 
that  moved  the  puppet.  We  do  not  produce  kings  of 
that  sort  nowadays,  but  King  Demos  has  his  own  vices, 
and  is  as  easily  blhided  and  swayed  as  Ahasuerus.  In 
every  form  of  government,  monarchy  or  republic,  there 
will  be  would-be  leaders,  who  seek  to  gain  influence 
and  carry  their  objects  by  tickling  vanity,  operating  on 
vices,  calumniating  innocent  men,  and  the  other  arts  of 
the  demagogue.  Where  the  power  is  in  the  hands  of  the 
people,  the  people  is  very  apt  to  take  its  responsibilities 
as  lightly  as  Ahasuerus  did  his,  and  to  let  itself  be  led 
blindfold  by  men  with  personal  ends  to  serve,  and 
hiding  them  under  the  veil  of  eager  desire  for  the  public 
good.  Christians  should  '  play  the  citizen  as  it  becomes 
the  gospel  of  Christ,'  and  take  care  that  they  are  not 
beguiled  into  national  enmities  and  public  injustice  by 
the  specious  talk  of  modern  Hamans. 


ESTHER'S  VENTURE 

'  Again  Esther  spake  unto  Hatach,  and  gave  him  commandment  unto  Mordecai : 
11.  All  the  king's  servants,  and  the  people  of  the  king's  provinces,  do  know,  that 
whosoever,  whether  man  or  woman,  shall  come  unto  the  king  into  the  inner  court, 
who  is  not  called,  there  is  one  law  of  his  to  put  him  to  death,  except  such  to  whom 
the  king  shall  hold  out  the  golden  sceptre,  that  he  may  live :  hut  I  have  not  been 
called  to  come  in  unto  the  king  these  thirty  days.  12,  And  they  told  to  Mordecai 
Esther's  words.  1.3.  Then  Mordecai  commanded  to  answer  Esther,  Think  not  with 
t  hyself  that  thou  shalt  escape  in  the  king's  house,  more  than  all  the  Jews.  14.  For 
it  Lhou  altogether  holdest  thy  peace  at  this  time,  then  shall  there  enlargement  and 
deliverance  arise  to  the  Jews  from  another  place  ;  but  thou  and  thy  father's  house 
shall  be  destroyed :  and  who  knoweth  whether  thou  art  come  to  the  kingdom  for 
such  a  time  as  this?  15.  Then  Esther  bade  them  return  Mordecai  this  answer, 
16.  Go,  gather  together  all  the  Jews  that  are  present  in  Shushan,  and  fast  ye  for 
me,  and  neither  eat  nor  drink  three  days,  night  or  day :  I  also  and  my  maidens 
will  fast  likewise ;  and  so  will  I  go  in  unto  the  king,  which  is  not  according  to  the 
law :  and  if  I  perish,  I  perish.  17.  So  Mordecai  went  his  way,  and  did  according 
to  all  that  Esther  had  commanded  him. 

'  Now  it  came  to  pass  on  the  third  day,  that  Esther  put  on  her  royal  apparel,  and 
stood  in  tho  inner  court  of  the  king's  house,  over  against  the  king's  house :  and  the 
king  sat  upon  his  loyal  throne  in  the  royal  house,  over  against  the  gate  of  the 


vs.  10-17]       ESTHER'S  VENTURE  7 

honse.  2.  And  it  was  so,  when  the  king  saw  Esther  the  queen  standing  in  the  court, 
that  she  obtained  favour  in  his  sight :  and  the  king  held  out  to  Esther  the  golden 
sceptre  that  was  in  his  hand.  So  Esther  drew  near,  and  touched  the  top  of  the 
sceptre.  3.  Then  said  the  king  unto  her,  What  wilt  thou,  queen  Esther  ?  and  what 
is  thy  request?  it  shall  be  even  given  thee  to  the  half  of  the  kingdom.'— Esther 
iv.  10-17 ;  v.  1-3. 

Patriotism  is  more  evident  than  religion  in  the  Book 
of  Esther.  To  turn  to  it  after  the  fervours  of  prophets 
and  the  continual  recognition  of  God  in  history  which 
marks  the  other  historical  books,  is  like  coming  dow^n 
from  heaven  to  earth,  as  Evv^ald  says.  But  that  differ- 
ence in  tone  probably  accurately  represents  the  differ- 
ence between  the  saints  and  heroes  of  an  earlier  age 
and  the  Jews  in  Persia,  in  whom  national  feeling  was 
stronger  than  devotion.  The  picture  of  their  charac- 
teristics deducible  from  this  Book  shows  many  of  the 
traits  which  have  marked  them  ever  since, — accommo- 
dating flexibility,  strangely  united  with  unbending 
tenacity;  a  capacity  for  securing  the  favour  of  influ- 
ential people,  and  willingness  to  stretch  conscience  in 
securing  it ;  reticence  and  diplomacy ;  and,  beneath  all, 
unquenchable  devotion  to  Israel,  which  burns  alike  in 
the  politic  Mordecai  and  the  lovely  Esther. 

There  is  not  much  audible  religion  in  either,  but  in 
this  lesson  Mordecai  impressively  enforces  his  assurance 
that  Israel  cannot  perish,  and  his  belief  in  Providence 
setting  people  in  their  places  for  great  unselfish  ends ; 
and  Esther  is  ready  to  die,  if  need  be,  in  trying  to  save 
her  people,  and  thinks  that  fasting  and  prayer  will 
help  her  in  her  daring  attempt.  These  two  cousins, 
unlike  in  so  much,  were  alike  in  their  devotion  to 
Israel ;  and  though  they  said  little  about  their  religion, 
they  acted  it,  which  is  better. 

It  is  very  like  Jews  that  the  relationship  between 
Mordecai  and  Esther  should  have  been  kept  dark. 
Nobody  but  one  or  two  trusted  servants  knew  that  the 


8  THE  BOOK  OF  ESTHER       [ch.  it. 

porter  was  the  queen's  cousin,  and  probably  her  Jewish 
birth  was  also  unknown.  Secrecy  is,  no  doubt,  the 
armour  of  oppressed  nations;  but  it  is  peculiarly 
agreeable  to  the  descendants  of  Jacob,  who  was  a 
master  of  the  art.  There  must  have  been  wonderful 
self-command  on  both  sides  to  keep  such  a  secret,  and 
true  affection,  to  preserve  intercourse  through  apparent 
indifference. 

Our  passage  begins  in  the  middle  of  Esther's  conver- 
sation with  the  confidential  go-between,  who  told  her 
of  the  insane  decree  for  the  destruction  of  the  Jews, 
and  of  Mordecai's  request  that  she  should  appeal  to 
the  king.  She  reminds  him  of  what  he  knew  well 
enough,  the  law  that  unsummoned  intruders  into  the 
presence  are  liable  to  death ;  and  adds  what,  of  course, 
he  did  not  know,  that  she  had  not  been  summoned  for 
a  month.  We  need  not  dwell  on  this  ridiculously 
arrogant  law,  but  may  remark  that  the  substantial 
accuracy  of  the  statement  is  confirmed  by  classical  and 
other  authors,  and  may  pause  for  a  moment  to  note 
the  glimpse  given  here  of  the  delirium  of  self-importance 
in  which  these  Persian  kings  lived,  and  to  see  in  it  no 
small  cause  of  their  vices  and  disasters.  What  chance 
of  knowing  facts  or  of  living  a  wholesome  life  had  a 
man  shut  off  thus  from  all  but  lickspittles  and  slaves  ? 
No  wonder  that  the  victims  of  such  dignity  beat  the 
sea  with  rods,  when  it  was  rude  enough  to  wreck  their 
ships !  No  wonder  that  they  wallowed  in  sensuality, 
and  lost  pith  and  manhood !  No  wonder  that  Greece 
crushed  their  unwieldy  armies  and  fleets ! 

And  what  a  glimpse  into  their  heart-emptiness  and 
degradation  of  sacred  ties  is  given  in  the  fact  that 
Esther  the  queen  had  not  seen  Ahasuerus  for  a  month, 
though  living  in  the  same  palace,  and  his  favourite 


Ts.  10-17]      ESTHER'S  VENTURE  9 

wife!  No  doubt,  the  experiences  of  exile  had  some- 
thing to  do  in  later  ages  with  the  decided  preference  of 
the  Jew  for  monogamy. 

But,  passing  from  this,  we  need  only  observe  how 
clearly  Esther  sees  and  how  calmly  she  tells  Mordecai 
the  tremendous  risk  which  following  his  counsel  would 
bring.  Note  that  she  does  not  refuse.  She  simply 
puts  the  case  plainly,  as  if  she  invited  further  com- 
munication. '  This  is  how  things  stand.  Do  you  still 
wish  me  to  run  the  risk  ? '  That  is  poor  courage  which 
has  to  shut  its  eyes  in  order  to  keep  itself  up  to  the 
mark.  Unfortunately,  the  temperament  which  clearly 
sees  dangers  and  that  which  dares  them  are  not  often 
found  together  in  due  proportion,  and  so  men  are 
over-rash  and  over-cautious.  This  young  queen  with 
her  clear  eyes  saw,  and  with  her  brave  heart  was 
ready  to  face,  peril  to  her  life.  Unless  we  fully  realise 
difficulties  and  dangers  beforehand,  our  enthusiasm  for 
great  causes  will  ooze  out  at  our  fingers'  ends  at  the 
first  rude  assault  of  these.  So  let  us  count  the  cost 
before  we  take  up  arms,  and  let  us  take  up  arms 
after  we  have  counted  the  cost.  Cautious  courage, 
courageous  caution,  are  good  guides.  Either  alone 
is  a  bad  one. 

Mordecai's  grand  message  is  a  condensed  statement 
of  the  great  reasons  which  always  exist  for  self- 
sacrificing  efforts  for  others'  good.  His  words  are 
none  the  less  saturated  with  devout  thought  because 
they  do  not  name  God.  This  porter  at  the  palace  gate 
had  not  the  tongue  of  a  psalmist  or  of  a  prophet. 
He  was  a  plain  man,  not  uninfluenced  by  his  pagan 
surroundings,  and  perhaps  he  was  careful  to  adapt  his 
message  to  the  lips  of  the  Gentile  messenger,  and 
therefore  did  not  more  definitely  use  the  sacred  name. 


10  THE  BOOK  OF  ESTHER       [ch.iv. 

It  is  very  striking  that  Mordecai  makes  no  attempt 
to  minimise  Esther's  peril  in  doing  as  he  wished.  lie 
knew  that  she  would  take  her  life  in  her  hand,  and  he 
expects  her  to  be  willing  to  do  it,  as  he  would  have 
been  willing.  It  is  grand  when  love  exhorts  loved 
ones  to  a  course  which  may  bring  death  to  them,  and 
lifelong  loneliness  and  quenched  hopes  to  it.  Think 
of  Mordecai's  years  of  care  over  and  pride  in  his  fair 
young  cousin,  and  how  many  joys  and  soaring  visions 
would  perish  with  her,  and  then  estimate  the  heroic 
self-sacrifice  he  exercised  in  urging  her  to  her  course. 

His  first  appeal  is  on  the  lowest  ground.  Pure 
selfishness  should  send  her  to  the  king ;  for,  if  she  did 
not  go,  she  would  not  escape  the  common  ruin.  So,  on 
the  one  hand,  she  had  to  face  certain  destruction ;  and, 
on  the  other,  there  were  possible  success  and  escape. 
It  may  seem  unlikely  that  the  general  massacre  should 
include  the  favourite  queen,  and  especially  as  her 
nationality  was  apparently  a  secret.  But  when  a  mob 
has  once  tasted  blood,  its  appetite  is  great  and  its  scent 
keen,  and  there  are  always  informers  at  hand  to  point 
to  hidden  victims.  The  argument  holds  in  reference  to 
many  forms  of  conflict  with  national  and  social  evils. 
If  Christian  people  allow  vice  and  godlessness  to  riot 
unchecked,  they  will  not  escape  the  contagion,  in  some 
form  or  other.  How  many  good  men's  sons  have  been 
swept  away  by  the  immoralities  of  great  cities !  How 
few  families  there  are  in  which  there  is  not  'one 
dead,'  the  victim  of  drink  and  dissipation !  How 
the  godliness  of  the  Church  is  cooled  down  by  the 
low  temperature  around!  At  the  very  lowest,  self- 
preservation  should  enlist  all  good  men  in  a  sacred 
war  against  the  sins  which  are  slaying  their  country- 
men.   If  smallpox    breaks  out  in  the    slums,  it  will 


vs.  10-17]       ESTHER'S  VENTURE  11 

come  uptown  into  the  grand  houses,  and  the  outcasts 
will  prove  that  they  are  the  rich  man's  brethren  by 
infecting  him,  and  perhaps  killing  him. 

Mordecai  goes  back  to  the  same  argument  in  the 
later  part  of  his  answer,  when  he  foretells  the  destruc- 
tion of  Esther  and  her  father's  house.  There  he  puts 
it,  however,  in  a  rather  different  light.  The  destruction 
is  not  now,  as  before,  her  participation  in  the  common 
tragedy,  but  her  exceptional  ruin  while  Israel  is  pre- 
served. The  unfaithful  one,  who  could  have  inter- 
vened to  save,  and  did  not,  will  have  a  special  infliction 
of  punishment.  That  is  true  in  many  applications. 
Certainly,  neglect  to  do  what  we  can  do  for  others  does 
always  bring  some  penalty  on 'the  slothful  coward; 
and  there  is  no  more  short-sighted  policy  than  that 
which  shirks  plain  duties  of  beneficence  from  regard 
to  self. 

But  higher  considerations  than  selfish  ones  are 
appealed  to.  Mordecai  is  sure  that  deliverance  will 
come.  He  does  not  know  whence,  but  come  it  will. 
How  did  he  arrive  at  that  serene  confidence  ?  Certainly 
because  he  trusted  God's  ancient  promises,  and  believed 
in  the  indestructibility  of  the  nation  which  a  divine 
hand  protected.  How  does  such  a  confidence  agree 
with  fear  of '  destruction '  ?  The  two  parts  of  Mordecai's 
message  sound  contradictory ;  but  he  might  well  dread 
the  threatened  catastrophe,  and  yet  be  sure  that 
through  any  disaster  Israel  as  a  nation  would  pass, 
cast  down,  no  doubt,  but  not  destroyed. 

How  did  it  agree  with  his  earnestness  in  trying  to 
secure  Esther's  help?  If  he  was  certain  of  the  issue, 
why  should  he  have  troubled  her  or  himself  ?  Just  for 
the  same  reason  that  the  discernment  of  God's  purposes 
and  absolute  reliance  on  these  stimulate,  and  do  not 


12  THE  BOOK  OF  ESTHER        [ch.  iv. 

paralyse,  devout  activity  in  helping  to  carry  them  out. 
If  we  are  sure  that  a  given  course,  however  full  of 
peril  and  inconvenience,  is  in  the  line  of  God's  purposes, 
that  is  a  reason  for  strenuous  effort  to  carry  it  out. 
Since  some  men  are  to  be  honoured  to  be  His  instru- 
ments, shall  not  we  be  willing  to  offer  ourselves  ?  There 
is  a  holy  and  noble  ambition  which  covets  the  dignity 
of  being  used  by  Him.  They  who  believe  that  their 
work  helps  forward  what  is  dear  to  God's  heart  may 
well  do  with  their  might  what  they  find  to  do,  and  not 
be  too  careful  to  keep  on  the  safe  side  in  doing  it.  The 
honour  is  more  than  the  danger.  '  Here  am  I ;  take  me,' 
should  be  the  Christian  feeling  about  all  such  work. 

The  last  argument  in  this  noble  summary  of  motives 
for  self-sacrifice  for  others'  good  is  the  thought  of  God's 
purpose  in  giving  Esther  her  position.  It  carries  large 
truth  applicable  to  us  all.  The  source  of  all  endow- 
ments of  position,  possessions,  or  capacities,  is  God. 
His  purpose  in  them  all  goes  far  beyond  the  happiness 
of  the  receiver.  Dignities  and  gifts  of  every  sort  are 
ours  for  use  in  carrying  out  His  great  designs  of  good 
to  our  fellows.  Esther  was  made  queen,  not  that 
she  might  live  in  luxury  and  be  the  plaything  of  a 
king,  but  that  she  might  serve  Israel.  Power  is  duty. 
Responsibility  is  measured  by  capacity.  Obligation 
attends  advantages.  Gifts  are  burdens.  All  men  are 
stewards,  and  God  gives  His  servants  their  *  talents,' 
not  for  selfish  squandering  or  hoarding,  but  to  trade 
with,  and  to  pay  the  profits  to  Him.  This  penetrating 
insight  into  the  source  and  intention  of  all  which  we 
have,  carries  a  solemn  lesson  for  us  all. 

The  fair  young  heroine's  soul  rose  to  the  occasion, 
and  responded  with  a  swift  determination  to  her  older 
cousin's  lofty  words.    Her   pathetic   request   for   the 


vs.  10-17]       ESTHEH'S  VENTURE  13 

prayers  of  the  people  for  whose  sake  she  was  facing 
death  was  surely  more  than  superstition.  Little  as 
she  says  about  her  faith  in  God,  it  obviously  underlay 
her  courage.  A  soul  that  dares  death  in  obedience  to 
His  will  and  in  dependence  on  His  aid,  demonstrates 
its  godliness  more  forcibly  in  silence  than  by  many 
professions. 

'  If  I  perish,  I  perish ! '  Think  of  the  fair,  soft  lips  set 
to  utter  that  grand  surrender,  and  of  all  the  flowery 
and  silken  cords  which  bound  the  young  heart  to  life, 
so  bright  and  desirable  as  was  assured  to  her.  Note 
the  resolute  calmness,  the  Spartan  brevity,  the  clear 
sight  of  the  possible  fatal  issue,  the  absolute  sub- 
mission. No  higher  strain  has  ever  come  from  human 
lips.  This  womanly  soul  was  of  the  same  stock  as  a 
Miriam,  a  Deborah,  Jephthah's  daughter;  and  the 
same  fire  burned  in  her,  —  utter  devotion  to  Israel 
because  entire  consecration  to  Israel's  God.  Religion 
and  patriotism  were  to  her  inseparable.  What  was 
her  individual  life  compared  with  her  people's  weal 
and  her  God's  will  ?  She  was  ready  without  a  murmur 
to  lay  her  young  radiant  life  down.  Such  ecstasy  of 
willing  self-sacrifice  raises  its  subject  above  all  fears 
and  dissolves  all  hindrances.  It  may  be  wrought  out 
in  uneventful  details  of  our  small  lives,  and  may 
illuminate  these  as  truly  as  it  sheds  imperishable 
lustre  over  the  lovely  figure  standing  in  the  palace 
court,  and  waiting  for  life  or  death  at  the  will  of  a 
■ensual  tyrant. 

The  scene  there  need  not  detain  us.  We  can  fancy 
Esther's  beating  heart  putting  fire  in  her  cheek,  and 
her  subdued  excitement  making  her  beauty  more 
splendid  as  she  stood.  What  a  contrast  between  her 
and  the    arrogant    king    on    his   throne !    He  was  a 


14  THE  BOOK  OF  ESTHER        [ch.iv. 

voluptuary,  ruined  morally  by  unchecked  licence, — a 
monster,  as  he  could  hardly  help  being,  of  lust,  self- 
will,  and  caprice.  She  was  at  that  moment  an  incarna- 
tion of  self-sacrifice  and  pure  enthusiasm.  The  blind 
world  thought  that  he  was  the  greater;  but  how 
ludicrous  his  condescension,  how  vulgar  his  pomp,  how 
coarse  his  kindness,  how  gross  his  prodigal  promises  by 
the  side  of  the  heroine  of  faith,  whose  life  he  held  in 
his  capricious  hand ! 

How  amazed  the  king  would  have  been  if  he  had 
been  told  that  one  of  his  chief  titles  to  be  remembered 
would  be  that  moment's  interview !  Ahasuerus  is  the 
type  of  swollen  self-indulgence,  which  always  degrades 
and  coarsens ;  Esther  is  the  type  of  self-sacrifice  which 
as  uniformly  refines,  elevates,  and  arrays  with  new 
beauty  and  power.  If  we  would  reach  the  highest 
nobleness  possible  to  us,  we  must  stand  with  Esther  at 
the  gate,  and  not  envy  or  imitate  Ahasuerus  on  his 
gaudy  throne.  'He  that  loveth  his  life  shall  lose  it; 
and  he  that  loseth  his  life  for  My  sake  and  the  gospel's, 
the  same  shall  find  it.' 


MORDECAI  AND  ESTHER 

'  For  if  thou  altogether  boldest  thy  peace  at  this  time,  then  shall  there  enlarge- 
ment and  deliverance  arise  to  the  Jews  from  another  place ;  but  thou  and  thy 
father's  house  shall  be  destroyed :  and  who  knoweth  whether  thou  art  come  to 
the  kingdom  for  such  a  time  as  this  ?'— Esther  iv.  14. 

All  Christians  are  agreed  in  holding  the  principles 
which  underlie  our  missionary  operations.  They  all 
believe  that  the  world  is  a  fallen  world,  that  without 
Christ  the  fallen  world  is  a  lost  world,  that  the  preach- 
ing of  the  Gospel  is  the  way  to  bring  Christ  to  those 


v.U]         MORDECAI  AND  ESTHER  15 

who  need  Him,  that  to  the  Church  is  committed  the 
ministry  of  reconciliation. 

These  are  the  grand  truths  from  which  the  grand 
missionary  enterprise  has  sprung.  It  is  not  my  in- 
tention to  enlarge  on  them  now.  But  in  this  and  in  all 
cases,  there  are  secondary  motives  besides,  and  inferior 
to  those  which  are  derived  from  the  real  fundamental 
principles.  We  are  stimulated  to  action  not  only 
because  we  hold  certain  great  principles,  but  because 
they  are  reinforced  by  certain  subordinate  considera- 
tions. 

It  is  the  duty  of  all  Christians  to  promote  the  mis- 
sionary cause  on  the  lofty  grounds  already  referred  to. 
Besides  that,  it  may  be  in  a  special  way  our  duty  for 
some  additional  reasons  drawn  from  peculiarities  in 
our  condition.  Circumstances  do  not  make  duties,  but 
they  may  bring  a  special  weight  of  obligation  on  us  to 
do  them.  Times  again  do  not  make  duties,  but  they 
too  make  a  thing  a  special  duty  now.  The  considera- 
tion of  consequences  may  not  decide  us  in  matters  of 
conscience,  but  it  may  allowably  come  in  to  deter  us 
from  what  is  on  higher  grounds  a  sin  to  be  avoided,  or 
a  good  deed  to  be  done.  Success  or  failure  is  an  alter- 
native that  must  not  be  thought  of  when  we  are  asking 
ourselves,  '  Ought  I  to  do  this  ? '  but  when  we  have 
answered  that  question,  we  may  go  to  work  with  a 
lighter  heart  and  a  firmer  hand  if  we  are  sure  that  we 
are  not  going  to  fail. 

All  these  are  inferior  considerations  which  do  not 
avail  to  determine  duty  and  do  not  go  deep  enough  to 
constitute  the  real  foundation  of  our  obligation.  They 
are  considerations  which  can  scarcely  be  shut  out,  and 
should  be  taken  in  in  determining  the  weight  of  our 
obligation,  in  shaping  the  selection  of  our  duties,  in 


16  THE  BOOK  OF  ESTHER       [ch.  iv. 

stimulating  the  zeal  and  sedulousness  with  which  we 
do  what  we  know  to  be  right. 

To  a  consideration  of  some  of  these  secondary  reasons 
for  energy  in  the  work  of  missions  I  ask  your  atten- 
tion. The  verse  which  I  have  selected  for  my  text  is 
spoken  by  Mordecai  to  Esther,  when  urging  her  to  her 
perilous  patriotism.  It  singularly  blends  the  statesman 
and  the  believer.  He  sees  that  if  she  selfishly  refuses 
to  identify  herself  with  her  people,  in  their  calamity, 
the  wave  that  sweeps  them  away  will  not  be  stayed 
outside  her  royal  dwelling ;  he  knows  too  much  of 
courts  to  think  that  she  can  stand  against  that  burst 
of  popular  fury  should  it  break  out.  But  he  looks  on  as 
a  devout  man  believing  God's  promises,  and  seeing  past 
all  instruments ;  he  warns  her  that  *  deliverance  and  en- 
largement shall  arise.'  He  is  no  fatalist;  he  believes 
in  man's  work,  therefore  he  urges  her  to  let  herself  be 
the  instrument  by  which  God's  work  shall  be  done.  He 
is  no  atheist ;  he  believes  in  God's  sovereign  power  and 
unchangeable  faithfulness,  therefore  he  looks  without 
dismay  to  the  possibility  of  her  failure.  He  knows 
that  if  she  is  idle,  all  the  evil  will  come  on  her  head, 
who  has  been  unfaithful,  and  that  in  spite  of  that 
God's  faithfulness  shall  not  be  made  of  none  effect. 
He  believes  that  she  has  been  raised  to  her  position  for 
God's  sake,  for  her  brethren's  sake,  not  her  own. 

'  Who  knoweth  whether  thou  art  come  to  the  king- 
dom for  such  a  time  as  this  ? '  There  speaks  the  devout 
statesman,  the  court-experienced  believer.  He  has  seen 
favourites  tended  and  tossed  aside,  viziers  powerful  and 
beheaded,  kings  half  deified  and  deserted  in  their  utmost 
need.  Sitting  at  the  gate  there,  he  has  seen  genera- 
tions of  Hamans  go  out  and  in ;  he  has  seen  the  craft, 
the  cruelty,  the  lusts  which  have  been  the  apparent 


v.H]         MORDECAI  AND  ESTHER  17 

causes  of  the  puppets'  rise  and  fall,  and  he  has  looked 
beyond  it  all  and  believed  in  a  Hand  that  pulled  tht 
wires,  in  a  King  of  Kings  who  raiseth  up  one  and  set- 
teth  down  another.  So  he  believes  that  his  Esther  has 
come  to  the  kingdom  by  God's  appointment,  to  do  God's 
work  at  God's  time.  And  these  convictions  keep  him 
calm  and  stir  her. 

We  may  find  here  a  series  of  considerations  having  a 
special  bearing  on  this  missionary  work.  To  them  I 
ask  your  attention. 

I.  God  gives  us  our  position  that  we  may  use  it  for 
His  cause,  for  the  spread  of  the  Gospel. 

In  most  general  terms. 

(a)  No  man  has  anything  for  his  own  sake — no  man 
liveth  to  himself.  We  come  to  the  kingdom  for 
others.  Here  we  touch  the  foundation  of  all  authority ; 
we  learn  the  awful  burden  of  all  talents,  the  dreadful 
weight  of  every  gift. 

(6)  No  man  receives  the  Gospel  for  his  own  sake.  We 
are  not  non-conductors,  but  stand  all  linked  hand  in 
hand.  We  are  members  of  the  body  that  the  blood 
may  flow  freely  through  us.  For  no  loftier  reason  did 
God  light  the  candle  than  that  it  might  give  light.  We 
are  beacons  kindled  to  transmit,  till  every  sister  height 
flashes  back  the  ray. 

(c)  We  especially  have  received  a  position  in  the 
world  for  the  conversion  of  the  world.  Our  national 
character  and  position  unite  that  of  the  Jew  in  his  two 
stages — we  are  set  to  be  the  'light  of  the  world,'  and 
we  are  '  tribes  of  the  wandering  foot.'  Our  history,  all, 
has  tended  to  this  function,  our  local  position,  our  laws, 
our  commerce.  We  are  citizens  of  a  nation  which  *  a« 
a  nest  has  found  the  riches '  of  the  peoples.  In  every 
land  our  people  dwell. 

B 


18  THE  BOOK  OF  ESTHER       [ch.iv. 

Think  of  our  colonies.  Think  that  we  are  brought 
into  contact  with  heathen,  whether  we  will  or  not. 
We  cannot  help  influencing  them.  '  Through  you  the 
name  of  God  is  blasphemed  amongst  the  Gentiles.' 
Think  of  our  sailors.  Why  this  position?  What  is 
plainer  than  that  all  this  is  in  order  that  the  Gospel 
might  be  spread  ?  God  has  ever  let  the  Gospel  follow 
in  the  tracks  made  for  it  by  commercial  law. 

This  object  does  not  exclude  others.  Our  language, 
our  literature,  our  other  rich  spiritual  treasures,  we 
hold  them  all  that  we  may  impart.  But  remember 
that  all  these  other  good  things  that  England  has  will 
spread  themselves  with  little  effort,  people  will  be  glad 
to  get  them.  But  the  Gospel  will  not  be  spread  so.  It 
must  be  taken  to  those  who  do  not  want  it.  It  must 
be  held  forth  with  outstretched  hands  to  '  a  disobedient 
and  gainsaying  people.'  It  is  found  of  them  that  seek 
it  not. 

Like  the  Lord  we  must  go  to  the  wanderers,  we  must 
find  them  as  they  lie  panting  and  thirsty  in  the  wild 
wilderness.  Therefore  Christian  men  must  make 
special  earnest  efforts  or  the  work  will  not  be  done. 
They  must  be  as  the  '  dew  that  tarrieth  not  for  man, 
nor  waiteth  for  the  sons  of  men.' 

And  again,  such  action  does  not  involve  approval  of 
the  means  by  which  such  a  position  has  become  ours. 
Mordecai  knew  what  vile  passions  had  been  at  work  to 
put  Esther  there,  and  did  not  forget  poor  Vashti,  and 
we  have  no  need  to  hide  conviction  that  England's 
place  has  often  been  won  by  wrong,  been  kept  by 
violence  and  fraud,  that,  as  she  has  strode  to  empire, 
her  foot  has  trodden  on  many  a  venerable  throne  un- 
justly thrown  down,  and  her  skirts  have  been  dabbled 
with  •  the  blood  of  poor  innocents,'  splashed  there  with 


v.U]        MORDECAI  AND  ESTHER  19 

her  armed  hoof.  Be  it  so ! — Still !  •  Thou  makest  the 
wrath  of  man  to  praise  Thee.'  Still — *  we  are  debtors 
both  to  the  Greek  and  barbarian,'  and  all  the  more 
debtors  because  of  ills  inflicted.  God  has  laid  on  us 
a  solemn  responsibility.  Over  all  the  dust  of  base 
intrigues,  and  the  smoke  of  bloody  battles,  and  the 
hubbub  of  busy  commerce,  His  hand  has  been  working, 
and  though  we  have  been  sinful.  He  has  given  us  a 
place  and  a  power,  mighty  and  awful.  We  have 
received  these  not  for  our  own  glory,  not  that  we 
should  boast  of  our  dominion,  not  that  we  should 
gather  tribute  of  gain  and  glory  from  subject  peoples, 
not  even  that  we  should  carry  to  them  the  great  though 
lesser  blessings  of  language,  united  order,  peaceful  com- 
merce, sway  over  brute  nature,  but  that  we  should  give 
them  what  will  make  them  men— Christ. 

We  have  a  work  to  do,  an  awful  work.  To  us  all  as 
Christians,  to  us  especially  as  citizens  of  this  land  and 
members  of  this  race,  to  us  and  to  our  brethren  across 
the  Atlantic  the  message  comes,  by  our  history,  our 
manners,  etc.,  as  plainly  as  if  it  were  written  in  every 
wave  that  beats  around  our  coast.  '  Ye  are  my 
witnesses,  saith  the  Lord.' 

II.  God  lays  upon  us  special  missionary  work  by  the 
special  characteristics  of  the  times. 

•  Such  a  time  as  this ! '    Was  there  ever  such  a  time  ? 

Look  at  the  condition  of  heathenism.  It  is  every- 
where tottering.  'The  idols  are  on  the  beasts,  Bel 
boweth  down.'  The  grim  gods  sit  half  famished 
already.  There  is  a  crack  in  every  temple  wall. 
Mahoramedanism,  Buddhism,  Brahminism  —  they  are 
none  of  them  progressive.  They  are  none  of  them 
vital.  Think  how  only  the  Gospel  outleaps  space  and 
time.    How  all  these  systems  are  of  time  and  devoured 


20  THE  BOOK  OF  ESTHER       [cm.  it. 

by  it,  as  Saturn  eats  his  own  children.  They  are  of 
the  things  that  can  be  shaken,  and  their  being  shaken 
makes  more  certain  the  remaining  of  the  things  that 
cannot  be  shaken. 

Look  at  the  fields  open.  India,  China,  Japan, 
"^  Africa,  in  a  word,  '  The  field  is  the  world '  in  a  degree 
in  which  it  never  was  before.  '  Such  a  time ' — a  time 
of  seething,  and  we  can  determine  the  cosmos ;  a  plastic 
time,  and  we  can  mould  it ;  it  is  a  deluge,  push  the  ark 
boldly  out  and  ransom  some. 

III.  If  we  neglect  the  voice  of  God's  providence,  harm 
comes  on  us. 

The  gifts  unimproved  are  apt  to  be  lost.  One  knows 
not  all  the  conditions  on  which  England  holds  her 
sway,  nor  do  we  fathom  the  strange  way  in  which 
spiritual  characteristics  are  inwrought  with  material 
\^  interests.  But  we  believe  in  a  providential  govern- 
ment of  the  world,  and  of  this  we  may  be  very  sure, 
that  all  advantages  not  used  for  God  are  held  by  a  very 
precarious  tenure. 

The  fact  is  that  selfishness  is  the  ruin  of  any  people. 
When  you  have  a  '  Christian '  nation  not  using  their 
position  for  God's  glory,  they  are  using  it  for  their  own 
sakes;  and  that  indicates  a  state  of  mind  which  will 
lead  to  numberless  other  evils  in  their  relation  to  men, 
many  of  which  have  a  direct  tendency  to  rob  them  of 
their  advantages.  For  instance,  a  selfish  nation  will 
.  never  hold  conquests  with  a  firm  grasp.  If  we  do  not 
bind  subject  peoples  to  us  by  benefits,  we  shall  repel 
them  by  hatreds.  Think  of  India  and  its  lessons,  or  of 
South  Africa  and  its.  We  have  seen  the  tide  of  material 
prosperity  ebb  away  from  many  a  nation  and  land,  and 
^  I  for  my  part  believe  in  the  Hand  of  God  in  history,  and 
believe  that  the  tide  follows  the  motions  of  the  heavens. 


V.  14]         MORDECAI  AND  ESTHER  21 

The  history  of  the  Jewish  people  is  not  an  exception 
to  the  laws  of  God's  government  of  the  world,  but  a 
specimen  of  it.  They  who  were  made  a  hearth  in 
which  the  embers  of  divine  truth  were  kept  in  a  dark 
world,  when  they  began  to  think  that  they  had  the 
truth  in  order  that  they  might  be  different  from  other 
people,  and  forgot  that  they  were  different  from  others 
in  order  that  they  might  first  preserve  and  then  impart 
the  truth  to  all,  lost  the  light  and  heat  of  it,  stiffened 
into  formal  hypocrisy  and  malice  and  all  uncharitable- 
ness,  and  then  the  Roman  sword  smote  their  national 
life  in  twain. 

Whatever  is  not  used  for  God  becomes  a  snare  first, 
then  injures  the  possessors,  and  tends  to  destroy  the^, 
possessors.  The  march  of  Providence  goes  on.  Its 
purposes  will  be  effected.  Whatever  stands  in  the 
way  will  be  mowed  remorselessly  down,  if  need  be. 
Helps  that  have  become  hindrances  will  go.  The 
kingdoms  of  this  world  will  have  to  fall ;  and  if  we 
are  not  helping  and  hasting  the  coming  of  the  Lord 
we  shall  be  destroyed  by  the  brightness  of  His  coming. 
The  chariot  rolls  on.  For  men  and  for  nations  there  is 
only  the  choice  of  yoking  themselves  to  the  car,  and 
finding  themselves  borne  along  rather  than  bearing 
it,  and  partaking  the  triumph,  or  of  being  crushed 
beneath  its  awful  wheels  as  they  bound  along  their 
certain  road,  bearing  Him  who  rides  '  forth  prosper- 
ously because  of  truth  and  meekness  and  righteousness.' 

IV.  Though  we  be  unfaithful,  God's  purpose  of  mercy  I 
to  the  world  shall  be  accomplished. 

'Deliverance  and  enlargement  shall  arise  from 
another  place.'  So  it  is  certain  tliat  God  from  eter- 
nity has  willed  that  all  flesh  should  see  His  salvation.  • 
He  loves  the  heathen  better  than  we  do.    Christ  has 


22  THE  BOOK  OF  ESTHER       [ch.iv. 

died  not  for  our  sins  only,  but  for  the  sins  of  the  whole 
world.  God  hath  made  of  one  blood  all  nations  of 
men.  The  race  is  one  in  its  need.  The  race  is  one  in 
its  goal.  The  Gospel  is  fit  for  all  men.  The  Gospel  is 
preached  to  all  men.  The  Gospel  shall  yet  be  received 
by  a  world,  and  from  every  corner  of  a  believing  earth 
will  rise  one  roll  of  praise  to  one  Father,  and  the  race 
shall  be  one  in  its  hopes,  one  in  its  Lord,  one  in  faith, 
one  in  baptism,  one  in  one  God  and  Father  of  us  all. 
That  grand  unity  shall  certainly  come.  That  true 
unity  and  fraternity  shall  be  realised.  The  blissful 
wave  of  the  knowledge  of  the  Lord  shall  cover  and 
hide  and  flow  rejoicingly  over  all  national  distinctions. 
'  In  that  day  Israel  shall  be  the  third  with  Egypt  and 
with  Assyria,  a  blessing  in  the  midst  of  the  earth.' 

This  is  as  certain  as  the  efficacy  of  a  Saviour's  blood 
can  make  it,  as  certain  as  the  universal  adaptation  and 
design  of  a  preached  Gospel  can  make  it,  as  certain  as 
the  oneness  of  human  nature  can  make  it,  as  certain 
as  the  power  of  a  Comforter  who  shall  convince  the 
world  of  sin,  of  righteousness,  and  judgment  can  make 
it,  as  certain  as  the  misery  of  man  can  make  it,  as 
certain  as  the  promises  of  God  who  cannot  lie  can 
make  it,  as  certain  as  His  faithfulness  who  hangs  the 
rainbow  in  the  heavens  and  enters  into  an  everlasting 
covenant  with  all  the  earth  can  make  it. 

And  this  accumulation  of  certainties  does  not  depend 
on  the  faithfulness  of  men.  In  the  width  of  that 
mighty  result  the  failure  of  some  single  agent  may  be 
eliminated.  Nay,  more,  though  all  men  failed,  God 
hath  instruments,  and  will  use  them  Himself,  if  need 
were. 

Only  we  may  share  the  triumph  and  partake  of  the 
blessed  result.    Decide  for  yourself,  what  share  you  will 


V.  U]  THE  NET  BROKEN  23 

have  in  that  marvellous  day.  Let  your  work  be  such 
as  that  it  shall  abide.  Stonehenge,  cathedrals,  temples 
stand  when  all  else  has  passed  away.  Work  for  God 
abides  and  outlasts  everything  beside,  and  the  smallest 
service  for  Him  is  only  made  to  flash  forth  light  by  the 
glorifying  and  revealing  fires  of  that  awful  day  which 
will  burn  up  the  wood,  the  hay,  and  the  stubble,  and 
flow  with  beautifying  brightness  and  be  flashed  back 
with  double  splendour  from  '  the  gold,  the  silver,  and 
the  precious  stones,'  the  abiding  workmanship  of  devout 
hearts  in  that  everlasting  tabernacle  which  shall  not 
be  taken  down,  the  ransomed  souls  builded  together, 
ransomed  by  our  preaching,  and  'builded  up  together  for 
a  temple  of  God  by  the  Spirit.' 


THE  NET  BROKEN 

'And  Esther  spake  yet  again  before  the  king,  and  fell  down  at  his  feet,  and 
besought  him  with  tears  to  put  away  the  mischief  of  Haman  the  Agagite,  and  his 
device  that  he  had  devised  against  the  Jews.  4.  Then  the  king  held  outthe  golden 
sceptre  toward  Esther.  So  Esther  arose,  and  stood  before  the  king,  5.  And  said, 
If  it  please  the  king,  and  if  I  have  found  favour  in  his  sight,  and  the  thing  seem 
right  before  the  king,  and  I  be  pleasing  in  his  eyes,  let  it  be  written  to  reverse  the 
letters  devised  by  Haman  the  son  of  Hammedatha  the  Agagite,  which  he  wrote  to 
destroy  the  Jews  which  are  in  all  the  king's  provinces :  6.  For  how  can  I  endure  to 
see  the  evil  that  shall  come  unto  my  people  ?  or  how  can  I  endure  to  see  the 
destruction  of  my  kindred?  7.  Then  the  king  Ahasuerus  said  unto  Esther  the 
queen,  and  to  Mordecai  the  Jew,  Behold,  I  have  given  Esther  the  house  of  Haman, 
and  him  they  have  hanged  upon  the  gallows,  because  he  laid  his  hand  upon  the 
Jews.  8.  Write  ye  also  for  the  Jews,  as  it  liketh  you,  in  the  king's  name,  and  seal 
it  with  the  king's  ring:  for  the  writing  which  is  written  in  the  king's  name,  and 
sealed  with  the  king's  ring,  may  no  man  reverse.  15.  And  Mordecai  went  out  from 
the  presence  of  the  king  in  royal  apparel  of  blue  and  white,  and  with  a  great  crown 
of  gold,  and  with  a  garment  of  fine  linen  and  purple:  and  the  city  of  Shushan 
rejoiced  and  was  glad.  16.  The  Jews  had  light,  and  gladness,  and  joy,  and  honour. 
17.  And  in  every  province,  and  in  every  city,  vrhithersoever  the  king's  command- 
ment and  his  decree  came,  the  Jews  had  joy  and  gladness,  a  feast  and  a  good  day. 
And  many  of  the  people  of  the  land  became  Jews ;  for  the  fear  of  the  Jews  fell 
upon  them.'— Esther  viii.  3-8, 15-17. 

The  spirit  of  this  passage  may  perhaps  be  best  caught 
by  taking  the  three  persons  appearing  in  it,  and  the 
One  who  does  not  appear,  but  acts  unseen  through 
them  all. 


24  THE  BOOK  OF  ESTHER     [cm.  tiii. 

I.  The  heroine  of  the  whole  book  and  of  this  chapter 
is  Esther,  one  of  the  sweetest  and  noblest  of  the  women 
of  Scripture.  The  orphan  girl  who  had  grown  up  into 
beauty  under  the  care  of  her  uncle  Mordecai,  and  wag 
lifted  suddenly  from  sheltered  obscurity  into  the  '  fierce 
light  that  beats  upon  a  throne,'  like  some  flower  culled 
in  a  shady  nook  and  set  in  a  king's  bosom,  was  true  to 
her  childhood's  protector  and  to  her  people,  and  kept 
her  sweet,  brave  gentleness  unspoiled  by  the  rapid  ele- 
vation which  ruins  so  many  characters.  Her  Jewish 
name  of  Hadassah  ('  myrtle ')  well  befits  her,  for  she  is 
clothed  with  unostentatious  beauty,  pure  and  fragrant 
as  the  blossoms  that  brides  twine  in  their  hair.  But, 
withal,  she  has  a  true  woman's  courage  which  is  always 
ready  to  endure  any  evil  and  dare  any  danger  at  the 
bidding  of  her  heart.  She  took  her  life  in  her  hand 
when  she  sought  an  audience  of  Ahasuerus  uninvited, 
and  she  knew  that  she  did.  Nothing  in  literature  is 
nobler  than  her  quiet  words,  which  measure  her  danger 
without  shrinking,  and  front  it  without  heroics :  '  If  I 
perish,  I  perish  ! ' 

The  danger  was  not  past,  though  she  was  queen  and 
beloved;  for  a  despot's  love  is  a  shifting  sand-bank, 
which  may  yield  anchorage  to-day,  and  to-morrow  may 
be  washed  away.  So  she  counted  not  her  life  dear  unto 
herself  when,  for  the  second  time,  as  in  our  passage,  she 
ventured,  uninvited,  into  the  king's  presence.  The 
womanly  courage  that  risks  life  for  love's  sake  is 
nobler  than  the  soldier's  that  feels  the  lust  of  battle 
maddening  him. 

Esther's  words  to  the  king  are  full  of  tact.  She 
begins  with  what  seems  to  have  been  the  form  of 
address  prescribed  by  custom,  for  it  is  used  by  her  in 
her  former  requests  (chap.  v.  8  ;  vii.  3).    But  she  adds  a 


vs.  3-8, 16-17]    THE  NET  BROKEN  55 

rariation  of  the  formula,  tinged  with  more  personal 
reference  to  the  king's  feeling  towards  her,  as  well  as 
breathing  entire  submission  to  his  estimate  of  what 
was  fitting.  '  If  the  thing  seem  right  before  the  king,' 
appeals  to  the  sense  of  justice  that  lay  dormant  beneath 
the  monarch's  arbitrary  will ;  '  and  I  be  pleasing  in  his 
eyes,'  drew  him  by  the  charm  of  her  beauty.  She 
avoided  making  the  king  responsible  for  the  plot,  and 
laid  it  at  the  door  of  the  dead  and  discredited  Haman. 
It  was  his  device,  and  since  he  had  fallen,  his  policy 
could  be  reversed  without  hurting  the  king's  dignity. 
And  then  with  fine  tact,  as  well  as  with  a  burst  of 
genuine  feeling,  she  flings  all  her  personal  influence 
into  the  scale,  and  seeks  to  move  the  king,  not  by 
appeals  to  his  justice  or  royal  duty,  but  to  his  love  for 
her,  which  surely  could  not  bear  to  see  her  suffer.  One 
may  say  that  it  was  a  low  motive  to  appeal  to,  to  ask 
the  despot  to  save  a  people  in  order  to  keep  one  woman 
from  sorrow ;  and  so  it  was.  It  was  Ahasuerus's  fault 
that  such  a  reason  had  more  weight  with  him  than 
nobler  ones.  It  was  not  Esther's  that  she  used  her 
power  over  him  to  carry  her  point.  She  used  the 
weapons  that  she  had,  and  that  she  knew  would  be 
efiicacious.  The  purpose  for  which  she  used  them  is 
her  justification. 

Esther  may  well  teach  her  sisters  to-day  to  be  brave 
and  gentle,  to  use  their  influence  over  men  for  high 
purposes  of  public  good,  to  be  the  inspirers  of  their 
husbands,  lovers,  brothers,  for  all  noble  thinking  and 
doing ;  to  make  the  cause  of  the  oppressed  their  own, 
to  be  the  apostles  of  mercy  and  the  hinderers  of  wrong, 
to  keep  true  to  their  early  associations  if  prosperity 
comes  to  them,  and  to  cherish  sympathy  with  their 
nation  so  deep  that  they  cannot '  endure  to  see  the  evil 


26  THE  BOOK  OF  ESTHER     [ch.viii. 

that  shall  come  unto  them'  without  using  all  their 
womanly  influence  to  avert  it. 

II.  Ahasuerus  plays  a  sorry  part  beside  Esther.  He 
knows  no  law  but  his  own  will,  and  that  is  moved,  not 
by  conscience  or  reason,  but  by  ignoble  passions  and 
sensual  desires.  He  tosses  his  subjects'  lives  as  trivial 
gifts  to  any  who  ask  for  them.  Haman's  wife  knew 
that  he  had  only  to  '  speak  to  the  king,'  and  Mordecai 
would  be  hanged ;  Haman  had  no  difficulty  in  securing 
the  royal  mandate  for  the  murder  of  all  the  Jews. 
Sated  with  the  indulgence  of  low  de  ires,  he  let  all 
power  slip  from  his  idle  hands,  and  his  manhood  was 
rotted  away  by  wallowing  in  the  pigsty  of  voluptu- 
ousness. But  he  was  tenacious  of  the  semblance  of 
authority,  and  demanded  the  appearance  of  abject 
submission  from  the  '  servants '  who  were  his  masters. 
He  yielded  to  Esther's  prayer  as  lightly  as  to  Haman's 
plot.  Whether  the  Jews  were  wiped  out  or  not 
mattered  nothing  to  him,  so  long  as  he  had  no  trouble 
in  the  affair. 

To  shift  all  responsibility  off  his  own  shoulders  on  to 
somebody  else's  was  his  one  aim.  He  was  as  untrue  to 
his  duty  when  he  gave  his  signet  to  Mordecai,  and  bade 
him  and  Esther  do  as  they  liked,  as  when  he  had  given 
it  to  Haman.  And  with  all  this  slothful  indifference  to 
his  duty,  he  was  sensitive  to  etiquette,  and  its  cobwebs 
held  him  whom  the  cords  of  his  royal  obligations  could 
not  hold.  It  mattered  not  to  him  that  the  edict  which 
he  allowed  Mordecai  to  promulgate  practically  lit  the 
flames  of  civil  war.  He  had  washed  his  hands  of  the 
whole  business. 

It  is  a  hideous  picture  of  an  Eastern  despot,  and  has 
been  said  to  be  unhistorical  and  unbelievable.  But 
the  world  has  seen  many  examples  of  rulers  whom  the 


vs.  3-8,  1517]    THE  NET  BROKEN  27 

possession  of  unlimited  and  irresponsible  power  has 
corrupted  in  like  fashion.  And  others  than  rulers  may 
take  the  warning  that  to  live  to  self  is  the  mother  of 
all  sins  and  crimes ;  that  no  man  can  safely  make  his 
own  will  and  his  own  passions  his  guides ;  that  there  is 
no  slavery  so  abject  as  that  of  the  man  who  is  tyran- 
nised by  his  lower  nature ;  that  there  is  a  temptation 
besetting  us  all  to  take  the  advantages  and  neglect  the 
duties  of  our  position,  and  that  to  yield  to  it  is  sure  to 
end  in  moral  ruin.  We  are  all  kings,  even  if  our  king- 
dom be  only  our  own  selves,  and  we  shall  rule  wisely 
only  if  we  rule  as  God's  viceroys,  and  think  more  of 
duty  than  of  delight. 

III.  Mordecai  is  a  kind  of  duplicate  of  Joseph,  and 
embodies  valuable  lessons.  Contented  acceptance  of 
obscurity  and  neglect  of  his  services,  faithfulness  to 
his  people  and  his  God  in  the  foul  atmosphere  of  such 
a  court,  wise  reticence,  patient  discharge  of  small 
duties,  undoubting  hope  when  things  looked  blackest 
fed  by  stedf ast  faith  in  God,  unchangedness  of  character 
and  purpose  when  lifted  to  supreme  dignity,  the  use  of 
influence  and  place,  not  for  himself,  but  for  his  people, 
— all  these  are  traits  which  may  be  imitated  in  any  life. 
We  should  be  the  same  men,  whether  we  sit  unnoticed 
among  the  lackeys  at  the  gate,  or  are  bearing  the  brunt 
of  the  hatred  of  powerful  foes,  or  are  clothed  '  in  royal 
apparel  of  blue  and  white,  and  with  a  great  crown  of 
gold.'  These  gauds  were  nothing  to  Mordecai,  and 
earthly  honours  should  never  turn  our  heads.  He 
valued  power  because  it  enabled  him  to  save  his 
brethren,  and  we  should  cultivate  the  same  spirit.  The 
political  world,  with  its  fierce  struggles  for  personal 
ends,  its  often  disregard  of  the  public  good,  and  its  use 
of  place  and  power  for  '  making  a  pile '  or  helping  rela- 


28  THE  BOOK  OF  ESTHER     [ch.tiii. 

tions  up,  would  be  much  the  better  for  some  infusion 
of  the  spirit  of  Mordecai. 

IV.  But  we  must  not  look  only  at  the  risible  persons 
and  forces.  This  book  of  Esther  does  not  say  much 
about  God,  but  His  presence  broods  over  it  all,  and  is 
the  real  spring  that  moves  the  movers  that  are  seen. 
It  is  all  a  lesson  of  how  God  works  out  His  purposes 
through  men  that  seem  to  themselves  to  be  working 
out  theirs.  The  king's  criminal  abandonment  to  lust 
and  luxury,  Haman's  meanly  personal  pique,  Esther's 
beauty,  the  fall  of  the  favourite,  the  long  past  services 
of  Mordecai,  even  the  king's  sleepless  night,  are  all 
threads  in  the  web,  and  God  is  the  weaver.  The  story 
raises  the  whole  question  of  the  standing  miracle  of 
the  co-existence  and  co-operation  of  the  divine  and  the 
human.  Man  is  free  and  responsible,  God  is  sovereign 
and  all-pervading.  He  'makes  the  wrath  of  man  to 
praise  Him,  and  with  the  remainder  thereof  He  girdeth 
Himself.'  To-day,  as  then.  He  is  working  out  His  deep 
designs  through  men  whom  He  has  raised  up,  though 
they  have  not  known  Him.  Amid  the  clash  of  con- 
tending interests  and  worldly  passions  His  solemn 
purpose  steadily  advances  to  its  end,  like  the  irresist- 
ible ocean  current,  which  persists  through  all  storms 
that  agitate  the  surface,  and  draws  them  into  the  drift 
of  its  silent  trend.  Ahasuerus,  Haman,  Esther,  Mor- 
decai, are  His  instruments,  and  yet  each  of  them  is  the 
doer  of  his  or  her  deed,  and  has  to  answer  to  Him  for  it. 


THE  BOOK   OF  JOB 
SORROW  THAT  WORSHIPS 

'  Naked  came  I  out  of  my  mother's  womb,  and  naked  shall  I  return  thither :  the 
Lord  gave,  and  the  Lord  hath  taken  away ;  blessed  be  the  name  of  the  Lord.'— 
Job  i.  21. 

This  book  of  Job  wrestles  with  the  problem  of  the 
meaning  of  the  mystery  of  sorrow.  Whether  history 
or  a  parable,  its  worth  is  the  same,  as  tortured  hearts 
have  felt  for  countless  centuries,  and  will  feel  to  the 
end.  Perhaps  no  picture  that  was  ever  painted  is 
grander  and  more  touching  than  that  of  the  man  of 
Uz,  in  the  antique  wealth  and  happiness  of  his  brighter 
days,  rich,  joyful,  with  his  children  round  him,  living  in 
men's  honour,  and  walking  upright  before  God.  Then 
come  the  dramatic  completeness  and  suddenness  of 
his  great  trials.  One  day  strips  him  of  all,  and 
stripped  of  all  he  rises  to  a  loftier  dignity,  for  there 
is  a  majesty  as  well  as  an  isolation  in  his  sorrow. 

How  many  spirits  tossed  by  afflictions  have  found 
peace  in  these  words  !  How  many  quivering  lips  have 
tried  to  utter  their  grave,  calm  accents !  To  how  many 
of  us  are  they  hallowed  by  memories  of  times  when 
they  stood  between  us  and  despair ! 

They  seem  to  me  to  say  everything  that  can  be  said 
about  our  trials  and  losses,  to  set  forth  the  whole  truth 
of  the  facts,  and  to  present  the  whole  series  of  feelings 
with  which  good  men  may  and  should  be  exercised. 

I.  The  vindication  of  sorrow. 


30  THE  BOOK  OF  JOB  [ch.i. 

He  *  rent  his  clothes ' — the  signs  and  tokens  of  inward 
desolation  and  loss. 

It  is  worth  our  while  to  stay  for  one  moment  with 
the  thought  that  we  are  meant  to  feel  grief.  God 
sends  sorrows  in  order  that  they  may  pain.  Sorrow 
has  its  manifold  uses  in  our  lives  and  on  our  hearts. 
It  is  natural.  That  is  enough.  God  set  the  fountain 
of  tears  in  our  souls.  We  are  bidden  not  to  'despise 
the  chastening  of  the  Lord.'  It  is  they  who  are 
'  exercised '  thereby  to  whom  the  chastisement  is 
blessed. 

It  is  sanctioned  by  Christ.  He  wept.  He  bade  the 
women  of  Jerusalem  weep  for  themselves  and  for 
their  children. 

Religion  does  not  destroy  the  natural  emotions — 
sorrow  as  little  as  any  other.  It  guides,  controls,  curbs, 
comforts,  and  brings  blessings  out  of  it.  So  do  not 
aim  at  an  impossible  stoicism,  but  permit  nature  to 
have  its  way,  and  look  at  the  picture  of  this  manly 
sorrow  of  Job's — calm,  silent,  unless  when  stung  by 
the  undeserved  reproaches  of  these  three  'orthodox 
liars  for  God,'  and  going  to  God  and  worshipping. 

II.  The  recognition  of  loss  and  sorrow  as  the  law 
of  life. 

'  Naked  came  I  out  of  my  mother's  womb.' 

We  need  not  dwell  on  the  figure  '  mother,'  suggesting 
the  grave  as  the  kindly  mother's  bosom  that  gathers 
us  all  in,  and  the  thought  that  perhaps  gleams  forth 
that  death,  too,  is  a  kind  of  birth. 

But  the  truth  picturesquely  set  forth  is  just  the  old 
and  simple  one — that  all  possessions  are  transient. 

The  naked  self  gets  clothed  and  lapped  round  with 
possessions,  but  they  are  all  outside  of  it,  apart  from 
its  individuality.    It  has  been  without  them.    It  will 


V.21]     SORROW  THAT  WORSHIPS  31 

be  without  them.    Death  at  the  end  will  rob  us  of 
them  all. 

The  inevitable  law  of  loss  is  fixed  and  certain.  We 
are  losing  something  every  moment — not  only  posses- 
sions, but  all  our  dearest  ties  are  knit  but  for  a  time, 
and  sure  to  be  snapped.  They  go,  and  then  after  a 
while  we  go. 

The  independence  of  each  soul  of  all  its  possessions 
and  relations  is  as  certain  as  the  loss  of  them.  They 
may  go  and  we  are  made  naked,  but  still  we  exist  all  the 
same.  We  have  to  learn  the  hard  lesson  which  sounds 
so  unfeeling,  that  we  can  live  on  in  spite  of  all  losses. 
Nothing,  no  one,  is  necessary  to  us. 

All  this  is  very  cold  and  miserable ;  it  is  the  standing 
point  of  law  and  necessity.  An  atheist  could  say  it. 
It  is  the  beginning  of  the  Christian  contemplation  of 
life,  but  only  the  beginning. 

III.  The  recognition  of  God  in  the  law. 

'The  Lord  gave,  and  the  Lord  hath  taken  away.' 
That  is  a  step  far  beyond  the  former.  To  bring  in  the 
thought  of  the  Lord  makes  a  world  of  difference. 

The  tendency  is  to  look  only  at  the  second  cause. 
In  Job's  case  there  were  two  classes  of  agencies,  men, 
Chaldeans  and  Sabeans,  and  natural  causes,  fire  and 
wind,  but  he  did  not  stop  with  these. 

The  grand  corrective  of  that  tendency  lies  in  the 
full  theistic  idea,  that  God  is  the  sole  cause  of  all.  The 
immanence  of  Deity  in  all  things  and  events  is  our 
refuge  from  the  soul-crushing  tyranny  of  the  reign 
of  law. 

That  devout  recognition  of  God  in  law  is  eminently 
to  be  made  in  regard  to  death,  as  Job  does  in  the 
text :  *  The  number  of  his  months  is  with  Thee. 
Death  is  not  any  more  nor  any  less  under  His  control 


32  THE  BOOK  OF  JOB  [ch.  i. 

than  all  other  human  incidents  are.  It  has  no  special 
sanctity,  nor  abnormally  close  connection  with  His  will, 
but  it  no  more  is  exempt  from  such  connection  than 
all  the  other  events  of  life.  The  connection  is  real. 
He  opens  the  gate  of  the  grave  and  no  man  shuts. 
He  shuts,  and  no  man  opens. 

Job  did  not  forget  the  Lord's  gifts  even  while  he  was 
writhing  under  the  stroke  of  His  withdra wings.  Alas ! 
that  it  should  so  often  need  sorrow  to  bear  into  our 
hearts  that  we  owe  all  to  Him,  but  even  then,  if  not 
before,  it  is  well  to  remember  how  much  good  we  have 
received  of  the  Lord,  and  the  remembrance  should  not 
be  '  a  sorrow's  crown  of  sorrow,'  but  a  thankful  one. 

IV.  The  thankful  resignation  to  God's  loving  ad- 
ministration of  the  law. 

The  preceding  wbrds  might  be  said  with  mere  sub- 
mission to  an  irresistible  power,  but  this  last  sentence 
climbs  to  the  highest  of  the  true  Christian  idea.  It 
recognises  in  loss  and  sorrow  a  reason  for  praise. 

Why? 

Because  we  may  be  sure  that  all  loss  is  for  our  good. 

Because  we  may  be  sure  that  all  loss  is  from  a  loving 
God.  In  loss  of  dear  ones,  our  gain  is  in  drawing 
nearer  to  God,  in  being  taught  more  to  long  for 
heaven.  In  our  relation  to  them,  a  loftier  love,  a 
hallowing  of  all  the  past.  Their  gain  is  in  their 
entrance  to  heaven,  and  all  the  glory  that  they  have 
reached. 

This  blessing  of  God  for  loss  is  not  inconsistent  with 
sorrow,  but  anticipates  the  future  when  we  shall  know 
all  and  bless  Him  for  alL 


THE  PEACEABLE  FRUITS  OF  SORROWS 
RIGHTLY  BORNE 

'Behold,  happy  is  the  man  whom  God  correcteth:  therefore  despise  not  thou 
the  chastening  of  the  Almighty:  IS.  For  He  maketh  sore,  and  bindeth  up:  He 
woundeth,  and  His  hands  make  whole.  19.  He  ohall  deliver  thee  in  six  troubles: 
yea,  in  seven  there  shall  no  evil  touch  thee.  20.  In  famine  He  shall  redeem  thee 
from  death :  and  in  war  from  the  power  of  the  swcd.  21.  Thou  shalt  be  hid  from 
the  scourge  of  the  tongue:  neither  shalt  thou  be  afraid  of  destruction  when  it 
cometh.  22.  At  destruction  and  famine  thou  shalt  laugh :  neither  shalt  thou  be 
afraid  of  the  beasts  of  the  earth.  23.  For  thou  shalt  be  in  league  with  the  stones 
of  the  field :  and  the  beasts  of  the  field  shall  be  at  peace  with  thee.  24.  And  thou 
shalt  know  that  thy  tabernacle  shall  be  in  peace ;  and  thou  shalt  visit  thy  habita- 
tion, and  shalt  not  sin.  25.  Thou  shalt  know  also  that  thy  seed  shall  be  great,  and 
thine  offspring  as  the  grass  of  the  earth.  26.  Thou  shalt  come  to  thy  grave  in  a 
full  age,  like  as  a  shock  of  corn  cometh  in  in  his  season.  27.  Lo  this,  we  have 
searched  it,  so  it  is ;  hear  it,  and  know  thou  it  for  thy  good.'— Job  v.  17-27. 

The  close  of  the  Book  of  Job  shows  that  his  friends" 
speeches  were  defective,  and  in  part  erroneous.  They 
all  proceeded  on  the  assumption  that  suffering  was 
the  fruit  of  sin — a  principle  which,  though  true  in 
general,  is  not  to  be  unconditionally  applied  to  specific 
cases.  They  all  forgot  that  good  men  might  be  ex- 
posed to  it,  not  as  punishment,  nor  even  as  correction, 
but  as  trial,  to  '  know  what  was  in  their  hearts.' 

Eliphaz  is  the  best  of  the  three  friends,  and  his  '^ 
speeches  embody  much  permanent  truth,  and  rise,  as 
in  this  passage,  to  a  high  level  of  literary  and  artistic 
beauty.  There  are  few  lovelier  passages  in  Scripture 
than  this  glowing  description  of  the  prosperity  of  the 
man  who  accepts  God's  chastisements ;  and,  on  the 
whole,  the  picture  is  true.  But  the  underlying  belief 
in  the  uniform  coincidence  of  inward  goodness  and 
outward  good  needs  to  be  modified  by  the  deeper 
teaching  of  the  New  Testament  before  it  can  be  re- 
garded as  covering  all  the  facts  of  life. 

Eliphaz  is  gathering  up,  in  our  passage,  the  threads 
of  his  speech.    He  bases  upon  all  that  he  has  been 

c 


34  THE  BOOK  OF  JOB  [ch.v. 

saying  the  exhortation  to  Job  to  be  thankful  for  his 
sorrows.  With  a  grand  paradox,  he  declares  the  man 
who  is  afflicted  to  be  happy.  And  therein  he  strikes 
an  eternally  true  note.  It  is  good  to  be  made  to  drink 
a  cup  of  sorrow.  Flesh  calls  pain  evil,  but  spirit  knows 
it  to  be  good.  The  list  of  our  blessings  is  not  only 
written  in  bright  inks,  but  many  are  inscribed  in 
black.  And  the  reason  why  the  sad  heart  should  be 
a  happy  heart  is  because,  as  Eliphaz  believed,  sadness 
is  God's  fatherly  correction,  intended  to  better  the 
subject  of  it.  '  Whom  the  Lord  loveth  He  chasteneth,' 
says  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews,  in  full  accord  with 
Eliphaz. 

But  his  well-meant  and  true  words  flew  wide  of  their 
mark,  for  two  reasons.  They  were  chillingly  didactic, 
and  it  is  vinegar  upon  nitre  to  stand  over  an  agonised 
soul  and  preach  platitudes  in  an  unsympathetic  voice. 
And  they  assumed  unusual  sin  in  Job  as  the  explana- 
tion of  his  unparalleled  pains,  while  the  prologue  tells 
us  that  his  sufferings  were  not  fruits  of  his  sin,  but 
trials  of  his  righteousness.  He  was  horrified  at  Job's 
words,  which  seemed  to  him  full  of  rebellion  and 
irreverence;  and  he  made  no  allowance  for  the  wild 
cries  of  an  agonised  heart  when  he  solemnly  warned 
the  sufferer  against  'despising'  God's  chastening.  A 
more  sympathetic  ear  would  have  detected  the  accent 
of  faith  in  the  groans. 

The  collocation,  in  verse  18,  of  making  sore  and  bind- 
ing up,  does  not  merely  express  sequence,  but  also 
purpose.  The  wounding  is  in  order  to  healing.  The 
wounds  are  merciful  surgery;  and  their  intention  is 
health,  like  the  cuts  that  lay  open  an  ulcer,  or  the 
scratches  for  vaccination.  The  view  of  suffering  in 
these    two  verses   is  not  complete,  but    it   goes    far 


vs.  17-27]       FRUITS  OF  SORROWS  35 

toward  completeness  in  tracing  it  to  God,  in  assert- 
ing its  disciplinary  intention,  in  pointing  to  the  divine 
healing  which  is  meant  to  follow,  and  in  exhorting  to 
submission.  We  may  recall  the  beautiful  expansion  of 
that  exhortation  in  Hebrews,  where  '  faint  not'  is  added 
to  •  despise  not,'  so  including  the  two  opposite  and  yet 
closely  connected  forms  of  misuse  of  sorrow,  accord- 
ing as  we  stiffen  our  wills  against  it,  and  try  to  make 
light  of  it,  or  yield  so  utterly  to  it  as  to  collapse. 
Either  extreme  equally  misses  the  corrective  purpose 
of  the  grief. 

On  this  general  statement  follows  a  charming 
picture  of  the  blessedness  which  attends  the  man 
who  has  taken  his  chastisement  rightly.  After  the 
thunderstorm  come  sunshine  and  blue,  and  the  song 
of  birds.  But,  lovely  as  it  is,  and  capable  of  applica- 
tion in  many  points  to  the  life  of  every  man  who 
trustfully  yields  to  God's  will,  it  must  not  be  taken  as 
a  literally  and  absolutely  true  statement  of  God's  deal- 
ings with  His  children.  If  so  regarded,  it  would  hope- 
lessly be  shattered  against  facts ;  for  the  world  is  full 
of  instances  of  saintly  men  and  women  who  have  not 
experienced  in  their  outward  lives  such  sunny  calm 
and  prosperity  stretching  to  old  age  as  are  here 
promised.  Eliphaz  is  not  meant  to  be  the  interpreter 
of  the  mysteries  of  Providence,  and  his  solution  is 
decisively  rejected  at  the  close.  But  still  there  is 
much  in  this  picture  which  finds  fulfilment  in  all 
devout  lives  in  a  higher  sense  than  his  intended 
meaning. 

The  first  point  is  that  the  devout  soul  is  exempt  from 
calamities  which  assail  those  around  it.  These  are  such 
as  are  ordinarily  in  Scripture  recognised  as  God's  judg- 
ments upon  a  people.    Famine  and  war  devastate,  but 


3«  THE  BOOK  OF  JOB  [ch.  v. 

the  devout  soul  abides  in  peace,  and  is  satisfied.  Now 
It  is  not  true  that  faith  and  submission  make  a  wall 
round  a  man,  so  that  he  escapes  from  such  calamities. 
In  the  supernatural  system  of  the  Old  Testament  such 
exemptions  were  more  usual  than  with  us,  though  this 
very  Book  of  Job  and  many  a  psalm  show  that  devout 
hearts  had  even  then  to  wrestle  with  the  problem  of 
the  prosperity  of  the  wicked  and  the  indiscriminate 
fall  of  widespread  calamities  on  the  good  and  bad. 

But  in  its  deepest  sense  (which,  however,  is  not 
Eliphaz's  sense)  the  faithful  man  is  saved  from  the 
evils  which  he,  in  common  with  his  faithless  neigh- 
bour, experiences.  Two  men  are  smitten  down  by  the 
same  disease,  or  lie  dying  on  a  battlefield,  shattered 
by  the  same  shell,  and  the  one  receives  the  fulfilment 
of  the  promise,  'there  shall  no  evil  touch  thee,'  and 
the  other  does  not.  For  the  evil  in  the  evil  is  all 
sucked  out  of  it,  and  the  poison  is  wiped  off  the  arrow 
which  strikes  him  who  is  united  to  God  by  faith  and 
•  submission.  Two  women  are  grinding  at  the  same 
millstone,  and  the  same  blow  kills  them  both  ;  but  the 
one  is  delivered,  and  the  other  is  not.  They  who  pass 
through  an  evil,  and  are  not  drawn  away  from  God  by 
it,  but  brought  nearer  to  Him,  are  hid  from  its  power. 
To  die  may  be  our  deliverance  from  death. 

Eliphaz's  promises  rise  still  higher  in  verses  22  and 
23,  in  which  is  set  forth  a  truth  that  in  its  deepest 
meaning  is  of  universal  application.  The  wild  beasts 
of  the  earth  and  the  stones  of  the  field  will  be  in 
league  with  the  man  who  submits  to  God's  will.  Of 
course  the  beasts  come  into  view  as  destructive,  and 
the  stones  as  injuring  the  fertility  of  the  fields.  There 
is,  probably,  allusion  to  the  story  of  Paradise  and  the 
Fall.    Man's  relation  to  nature  was  disturbed  by  sin; 


vs.  17-27]       FRUITS  OF  SORROWS  37 

it  will  be  rectified  by  his  return  to  God.  Such  a 
doctrine  of  the  effects  of  sin  in  perverting  man's  rela- 
tion to  creatures  runs  all  through  Scripture,  and  is  not 
to  be  put  aside  as  mere  symbolism. 

But  the  large  truth  underlying  the  words  here  is 
that,  if  we  are  servants  of  God,  we  are  masters  of 
everything.  '  All  things  work  together  for  good  to 
them  that  love  God.'  All  things  serve  the  soul  that 
serves  God;  as,  on  the  other  hand,  all  are  against 
him  that  does  not,  and  '  the  stars  in  their  courses 
fight  against'  those  who  fight  against  Him.  All  things 
are  ours,  if  we  are  Christ's.  The  many  mediaeval 
legends  of  saints  attended  by  animals,  from  St.  Jerome 
and  his  lion  downwards  to  St.  Francis  preaching  to 
the  birds,  echo  the  thoughts  here.  A  gentle,  pure  soul, 
living  in  amity  with  dumb  creatures,  has  wonderful 
power  to  attract  them.  They  who  are  at  peace  with 
God  can  scarcely  be  at  war  with  any  of  God's  creatures. 
Gentleness  is  stronger  than  iron  bands.  '  Cords  of 
love '  draw  most  surely. 

Peace  and  prosperity  in  home  and  possessions  are 
the  next  blessings  promised  (ver.  24).  •  Thou  shalt  visit 
[look  over]  thy  household,  and  shalt  miss  nothing.' 
No  cattle  have  strayed  or  been  devoured  by  evil  beasts, 
or  stolen,  as  all  Job's  had  been.  Alas !  Eliphaz  knew 
nothing  about  commercial  crises,  and  the  great  system 
of  credit  by  which  one  scoundrel's  fall  may  bring  down 
hundreds  of  good  men  and  patient  widows,  who  look 
over  their  possessions  and  find  nothing  but  worthless 
shares.  Yet  even  for  those  who  find  all  at  once  that 
the  herd  is  cut  off  from  the  stall,  their  tabernacle 
may  still  be  in  peace,  and  though  the  fold  be  empty 
they  may  miss  nothing,  if  in  the  empty  place  they 
find  God.    That  is  what  Christians  may  make  out  of 


38  THE  BOOK  OF  JOB  [ch.v. 

the  words;  but  it  is  not  what  was  originally  meant 
by  them. 

In  like  manner  the  next  blessing,  that  of  a  numerous 
posterity,  does  not  depend  on  moral  or  religious  con- 
dition, as  Eliphaz  would  make  out,  and  in  modern 
days  is  not  always  regarded  as  a  blessing.  But  note 
the  singular  heartlessness  betrayed  in  telling  Job,  all 
whose  flocks  and  herds  had  been  carried  off,  and  his 
children  laid  dead  in  their  festival  chamber,  that 
abundant  possessions  and  ojffspring  were  the  token  of 
God's  favour.  The  speaker  seems  serenely  unconscious 
that  he  was  saying  anything  that  could  drive  a  knife 
into  the  tortured  man.  He  is  so  carried  along  on  the 
waves  of  his  own  eloquence,  and  so  absorbed  in  string- 
ing together  the  elements  of  an  artistic  whole,  that  he 
forgets  the  very  sorrows  which  he  came  to  comfort. 
There  are  not  a  few  pious  exhorters  of  bleeding  hearts 
who  are  chargeable  with  the  same  sin.  The  only  hand 
that  will  bind  up  without  hurting  is  a  hand  that  is 
sympathetic  to  the  finger-tips.  No  eloquence  or  poetic 
beauty  or  presentation  of  undeniable  truths  will  do  as 
substitutes  for  that. 

The  last  blessing  promised  is  that  which  the  Old 
Testament  places  so  high  in  the  list  of  good  things — 
long  life.  The  lovely  metaphor  in  which  that  promise 
is  couched  has  become  familiar  to  us  all.  The  ripe 
corn  gathered  into  a  sheaf  at  harvest-time  suggests 
festival  rather  than  sadness.  It  speaks  of  growth 
accomplished,  of  fruit  matured,  of  the  ministries  of  sun 
and  rain  received  and  used,  and  of  a  joyful  gathering 
into  the  great  storehouse.  There  is  no  reference  in  the 
speech  to  the  uses  of  the  sheaf  after  it  is  harvested, 
but  we  can  scarcely  avoid  following  its  history  a  little 
farther  than  the  'grave'  which  to  Eliphaz  seems  the 


vs.  17-27]       FRUITS  OF  SORROWS  89 

garner.  Are  all  these  matured  powers  to  have  no 
field  for  action?  Were  all  these  miracles  of  vegeta- 
tion set  in  motion  only  in  order  to  grow  a  crop  which 
should  be  reaped,  and  there  an  end?  What  is  to 
be  done  with  the  precious  fruit  which  has  taken  so 
long  time  and  so  much  cultivation  to  grow?  Surely 
it  is  not  the  intention  of  the  Lord  of  the  harvest  to 
let  it  rot  when  it  has  been  gathered.  Surely  we  are 
grown  here  and  ripened  and  carried  hence  for  some- 
thing. 

But  that  is  not  in  our  passage.  This,  however,  may 
be  drawn  from  it — that  maturity  does  not  depend 
on  length  of  days;  and,  however  Eliphaz  meant  to 
promise  long  life,  the  reality  is  that  the  devout  soul 
may  reckon  on  complete  life,  whether  it  be  long  or 
short.  God  will  not  call  His  children  home  till  their 
schooling  is  done ;  and,  however  green  and  young  the 
corn  may  seem  to  our  eyes.  He  knows  which  heads  in 
the  great  harvest-field  are  ready  for  removal,  and 
gathers  only  these.  The  child  whose  little  coffin  may 
be  carried  under  a  boy's  arm  may  be  ripe  for  harvest- 
ing. Not  length  of  days,  but  likeness  to  God,  makes 
maturity ;  and  if  we  die  according  to  the  will  of  God, 
it  cannot  but  be  that  we  shall  come  to  our  grave  in  a 
full  age,  whatever  be  the  number  of  years  carved  on 
our  tombstones. 

The  speech  ends  with  a  somewhat  self-complacen^ 
exhortation  to  the  poor,  tortured  man  :  '  We  ^  ,  e 
searched  it,  so  it  is.'  We  wise  men  pledge  our  wisdom 
and  our  reputation  that  this  is  true.  Great  is  authority. 
An  ounce  of  sympathy  would  have  done  more  to  com- 
mend the  doctrine  than  a  ton  of  dogmatic  self-con- 
fidence. '  Hear  it,  and  know  thou  it  for  thyself.'  Take 
it  into  thy  mind.    Take  it  into  thy  mind  and  heart, 


40  THE  BOOK  OF  JOB  [ch.  tiii. 

and  take  it  for  thy  good.  It  was  a  frosty  ending, 
exasperating  in  its  air  of  patronage,  of  superior 
wisdom,  and  in  its  lack  of  any  note  of  feeling.  So, 
of  course,  it  set  Job's  impatience  alight,  and  his  next 
speech  is  more  desperate  than  his  former.  When  will 
well-meaning  comforters  learn  not  to  rub  salt  into 
wounds  while  they  seem  to  be  dressing  them  ? 


TWO  KINDS  OF  HOPE 

'Whose  hope  shall   be  cut  off,  and  whose  trust  shall  be  a  gpidar't  w«b.'— 
Job  Tlii.  14. 

'And  hope  maketh  not  ashamed.'— Romans  v.  5. 

These  two  texts  take  opposite  sides.  Bildad  was  not 
the  wisest  of  Job's  friends,  and  he  gives  utterance  to 
solemn  commonplaces  with  partial  truth  in  them.  In 
the  rough  it  is  true  that  the  hope  of  the  ungodly 
perishes,  and  the  limits  of  the  truth  are  concealed 
by  the  splendour  of  the  imagery  and  the  perfection 
of  artistic  form  in  which  the  well-worn  platitude  is 
draped.  The  spider's  web  stretched  glittering  in  the 
dewy  morning  on  the  plants,  shaking  its  threaded 
tears  in  the  wind,  the  flag  in  the  dry  bed  of  a  nullah 
withering  while  yet  green,  the  wall  on  which  leaning 
a  man  will  fall,  are  vivid  illustrations  of  hopes  that 
collapse  and  fail.  But  my  other  text  has  to  do  with 
hopes  that  do  not  fail.  Paul  thinks  that  he  knows  of 
hope  that  maketh  not  ashamed,  that  is,  which  never 
disappoints.  Bildad  was  right  if  he  was  thinking,  as 
he  was,  of  hopes  fixed  on  earth ;  the  Apostle  was  right, 
for  he  was  thinking  of  hopes  set  on  God.  It  is  a  com- 
monplace that  '  hope  springs  immortal  in  the  human 
breast';  it  is  equally  a  commonplace  that  hopes  are 


V.14]  TWO  KINDS  OF  HOPE  41 

disappointed.  What  is  the  conclusion  from  these  two 
universal  experiences?  Is  it  the  cynical  one  that  it 
is  ail  illusion,  or  is  it  that  somewhere  there  must 
be  an  object  on  which  hope  may  twine  its  tendrils 
without  fear?  God  has  given  the  faculty,  and  we  may 
be  sure  that  it  is  not  given  to  be  for  ever  balked. 
We  must  hope.  Our  hope  may  be  our  worst  enemy  ;\ 
it  may  and  should  be  our  purest  joy. 

Let  us  then  simply  consider  these  two  sorts  of  hope, 
the  earthly  and  the  heavenly,  in  their  working  in  the 
three  great  realms  of  life,  death,  and  eternity. 

I.  In  life. 

The  faculty  is  inseparable  from  man's  consciousness 
of  immortality  and  of  an  indefinitely  expansible  nature 
which  ever  makes  him  discontented  with  the  present. 
It  has  great  purposes  to  perform  in  strengthening  him 
for  work,  in  helping  him  over  sorrows,  in  making  him 
buoyant  and  elastic,  in  painting  for  him  the  walls  of 
the  dungeon,  and  hiding  for  him  the  weight  of  the 
fetters. 

But  for  what  did  he  receive  this  great  gift  ?  Mainly 
that  he  might  pass  beyond  the  temporal  and  hold 
converse  with  the  skies.  Its  true  sphere  is  the  unseen 
future  which  is  at  God's  right  hand. 

We  may  run  a  series  of  antitheses,  e.g. — 

Earthly  hope  is  so  uncertain  that  its  larger  part 
is  often  fear. 

Heavenly  hope  is  fixed  and  sure.  It  is  as  certain  as 
history. 

Earthly  hope  realised  is  always  less  blessed  than  we 
expected.  How  universal  the  experience  that  there 
is  little  to  choose  between  a  gratified  and  a  frustrated 
hope !  The  wonders  inside  the  caravan  are  never  so 
wonderful  as  the  canvas  pictures  outside. 


42  THE  BOOK  OF  JOB  [ch.viii. 

Heavenly  hopes  ever  surpass  the  most  rapturous 
anticipation.    '  The  half  hath  not  been  told.' 

Earthly  hopes  are  necessarily  short-winged.  They 
are  settled  one  way  or  another,  and  sink  hull  down 
below  our  horizon. 

Heavenly  hope  sets  its  object  far  off,  and  because 
a  lifetime  only  attains  it  in  part,  it  blesses  a  lifetime 
and  outlasts  it. 

II.  Hope  in  death. 

That  last  hour  ends  for  us  all  alike  our  earthly  joys 
and  relations.  The  slow  years  slip  away,  and  each 
bears  with  it  hopes  that  have  been  outlived,  whether 
fulfilled  or  disappointed.  One  by  one  the  lights  that 
we  kindle  in  our  hall  flicker  out,  and  death  quenches 
the  last  of  them.  But  there  is  one  light  that  burns 
on  clear  through  the  article  of  death,  like  the  lamp 
in  the  magician's  tomb.  '  The  righteous  hath  hope  in 
his  death.'  We  can  each  settle  for  ourselves  whether 
we  shall  carry  that  radiant  angel  with  her  white 
wings  into  the  great  darkness,  or  shall  sadly  part 
with  her  before  we  part  with  life.  To  the  earthly 
soul  that  last  earthly  hour  is  a  black  wall  beyond 
which  it  cannot  look.  To  the  God-trusting  soul  the 
darkness  is  peopled  with  bright-faced  hopes. 

III.  Hope  in  eternity. 

It  is  not  for  our  tongues  to  speak  of  what  must, 
in  the  natural  working  out  of  consequences,  be  the 
ultimate  condition  of  a  soul  which  has  not  set  its 
hopes  on  the  God  who  alone  is  the  right  Object  of 
the  blessed  but  yet  awful  capacity  of  hoping,  when 
all  the  fleeting  objects  which  it  sought  as  solace  and 
mask  of  its  own  true  poverty  are  clean  gone  from  its 
grasp.  Dante's  tremendous  words  are  more  than 
enough  to  move  wholesome  horror  in  any  thinking 


v.u]  JOB'S  QUESTION,  JESUS'  ANSWER  43 

soul:  'Leave  hope  behind,  all  ye  who  enter  here. 
They  are  said  to  be  unfeeling,  grim,  and  mediaeval, 
incredible  in  this  enlightened  age;  but  is  there  any 
way  out  of  them,  if  we  take  into  account  what  our 
nature  is  moulded  to  need  and  cling  to,  and  what 
'  godless '  men  have  done  with  it  ? 

But  let  us  turn  to  the  brighter  of  these  texts.  *  Hope 
maketh  not  ashamed.'  There  will  be  an  internal 
increase  of  blessedness,  power,  purity  in  that  future, 
a  fuller  possession  of  God,  a  reaching  out  after  com- 
pleter likeness  to  Him.  So  if  we  can  think  of  days 
in  that  calm  state  where  time  will  be  no  more, 
'to-morrow  shall  be  as  this  day  and  much  more 
abundant,'  and  the  angel  Hope,  who  kept  us  company 
through  all  the  weary  marches  of  earth,  will  attend 
on  us  still,  only  having  laid  aside  the  uncertainty  that 
sometime  veiled  her  smiles,  but  retaining  all  the 
buoyant  eagerness  for  the  ever  unfolding  wonders 
which  gave  us  courage  and  cheer  in  the  days  of  our 
flesh. 

JOB'S  QUESTION,  JESUS'  ANSWER 

'If  a  man  die,  shall  he  live  again?'— Job  xiv.  14. 

'. . .  I  am  the  resurrection,  and  the  life :  he  that  believeth  in  Me,  though  he  were 
dead,  yet  shall  he  live :  26.  And  whosoever  liveth  and  believeth  in  Me  shall  never 
die.'— John  xi.  25,  26. 

Job's  question  waited  long  for  an  answer.  Weary 
centuries  rolled  away ;  but  at  last  the  doubting,  almost 
despairing,  cry  put  into  the  mouth  of  the  man  of 
sorrows  of  the  Old  Testament  is  answered  by  the  Man 
of  Sorrows  of  the  New.  The  answer  in  words  is  this 
second  text  which  may  almost  be  supposed  to  allude 
to  the  ancient  question.  The  answer,  in  fact,  is  the 
resurrection  of  Christ.  Apart  from  this  answer  there 
is  none. 


44  THE  BOOK  OF  JOB  [ch.xiv. 

So  we  may  take  these  two  texts  to  help  us  to  grasp 
more  clearly  and  feel  more  profoundly  what  the  world 
owes  to  that  great  fact  which  we  are  naturally  led  to 
think  of  to-day. 

I.  The  ancient  and  ever  returning  question. 

The  Book  of  Job  is  probably  a  late  part  of  the  Old 
Testament.  It  deals  with  problems  which  indicate 
some  advance  in  religious  thought.  Solemn  and  mag- 
nificent, and  for  the  most  part  sad ;  it  is  like  a  Titan 
struggling  with  large  problems,  and  seldom  attaining 
to  positive  conclusions  in  which  the  heart  or  the  head 
can  rest  in  peace.  Here  all  Job's  mind  is  clouded  with 
a  doubt.  He  has  just  given  utterance  to  an  intense 
longing  for  a  life  beyond  the  grave.  His  abode  in 
Sheol  is  thought  of  as  in  some  sense  a  breach  in  the 
continuity  of  his  consciousness,  but  even  that  would  be 
tolerable,  if  only  he  could  be  sure  that,  after  many 
days,  God  would  remember  him.  Then  that  longing 
gives  way  before  the  torturing  question  of  the  text, 
which  dashes  aside  the  tremulous  hope  with  its  insist- 
ent interrogation.  It  is  not  denial,  but  it  is  a  doubt 
which  palsies  hope.  But  though  he  has  no  certainty, 
he  cannot  part  with  the  possibility,  and  so  goes  on  to 
imagine  how  blessed  it  would  be  if  his  longing  were 
fulfilled.  He  thinks  that  such  a  renewed  life  would  be 
like  the  'release'  of  a  sentry  who  had  long  stood  on 
guard ;  he  thinks  of  it  as  his  swift,  joyous  *  answer '  to 
God's  summons,  which  would  draw  him  out  from  the 
sad  crowd  of  pale  shadows  and  bring  him  back  to 
warmth  and  reality.  His  hope  takes  a  more  daring 
flight  still,  and  he  thinks  of  God  as  yearning  for  His 
creature,  as  His  creature  yearns  for  Him,  and  having 
*  a  desire  to  the  work  of  His  hands,'  as  if  His  heaven 
would  be  incomplete  without  His  servant.     But  the 


v.U]  JOB'S  QUESTION,  JESUS'  ANSWER  45 

rapture  and  the  vision  pass,  and  the  rest  of  the  chapter 
is  all  clouded  over,  and  the  devout  hope  loses  its  light. 
Once  again  it  gathers  brightness  in  the  twenty-first 
chapter,  where  the  possibility  flashes  out  starlike,  that 
*  after  my  skin  hath  been  thus  destroyed,  yet  from  my 
flesh  shall  I  see  God.' 

These  fluctuations  of  hope  and  doubt  reveal  to  us  the 
attitude  of  devout  souls  in  Israel  at  a  late  era  of  the 
national  life.  And  if  they  show  us  their  high-water 
mark,  we  need  not  suppose  that  similar  souls  outside 
the  Old  Testament  circle  had  solid  certainty  where 
these  had  but  a  variable  hope.  We  know  how  large  a 
development  the  doctrine  of  a  future  life  had  in  Assyria 
and  in  Egypt,  and  I  suppose  we  are  entitled  to  say  that 
men  have  always  had  the  idea  of  a  future.  They  have 
always  had  the  thought,  sometimes  as  a  fear,  some- 
times as  a  hope,  but  never  as  a  certainty.  It  has  lacked 
not  only  certainty  but  distinctness.  It  has  lacked 
solidity  also,  the  power  to  hold  its  own  and  sustain 
itself  against  the  weighty  pressure  of  intrusive  things 
seen  and  temporal. 

But  we  need  not  go  to  the  ends  of  the  earth  or  to 
past  generations  for  examples  of  a  doubting,  superficial 
hold  of  the  truth  that  man  lives  through  death  and 
after  it.  We  have  only  to  look  around  us,  and,  alas ! 
we  have  only  to  look  within  us.  This  age  is  asking 
the  question  again,  and  answering  it  in  many  tones, 
sometimes  of  indifferent  disregard,  sometimes  flaunting 
a  stark  negative  without  reasoned  foundation,  some- 
times with  affirmatives  with  as  little  reason  as  these 
negatives.  The  modern  world  is  caught  in  the  rush 
and  whirl  of  life,  has  its  own  sorrows  to  front,  its  own 
battles  to  fight,  and  large  sections  of  it  have  never 
come  as  near  an  answer  to  Job's  question  as  Job  did. 


46  THE  BOOK  OF  JOB  [ch.  xiv. 

II.  Christ's  all-sufficing  answer. 

He  gave  it  there,  by  the  grave  of  Lazarus,  to  that 
weeping  sister,  but  He  spoke  these  great  words  of  calm 
assurance  to  all  the  world.  Oije  cannot  but  note  the 
difference  between  His  attitude  in  the  presence  of  the 
great  Mystery  and  that  of  all  other  teachers.  How 
calmly,  certainly,  and  confidently  He  speaks  ! 

Mark  that  Jesus,  even  at  that  hour  of  agony,  turns 
Martha's  thoughts  to  Himself.  What  He  is  is  the  all- 
important  thing  for  her  to  know.  If  she  understands 
IJim,  life  and  death  will  have  no  insoluble  problems 
nor  any  hopelessness  for  her.  '  I  am  the  Resurrection 
and  the  Life.'  She  had  risen  in  her  grief  to  a  lofty 
height  in  believing  that  'even  now' — at  this  moment 
when  help  is  vain  and  hope  is  dead — '  whatsoever  thou 
wilt  ask  of  God,  God  will  give  it  thee,'  but  Jesus  offers 
to  her  a  loftier  conception  of  Him  when  He  lays  a 
sovereign  hand  on  resurrection  and  life,  and  discloses 
that  both  inhere  in  Him,  and  from  Him  flow  to  all  who 
shall  possess  them.  He  claims  to  have  in  Himself  the 
fountain  of  life,  in  all  possible  senses  of  the  word,  as 
well  as  in  the  special  sense  relevant  at  that  sad  hour. 
Further,  He  tells  Martha  that  by  faith  in  Him  any  and 
all  may  possess  that  life.  And  then  He  majestically 
goes  on  to  declare  that  the  life  which  He  gives  is 
immune  from,  and  untouched  by,  death.  The  believer 
shall  live  though  he  dies,  the  living  believer  shall  never 
die.  It  is  clear  that,  in  these  two  great  statements,  to 
die  is  used  in  two  different  meanings,  referring  in  the 
former  case  to  the  physical  fact,  and  in  the  latter  carry- 
ing a  heavier  weight  of  significance,  namely  the  preg- 
nant sense  which  it  usually  has  in  this  Gospel,  of 
separation  from  God  and  consequently  from  the  true 
life  of  the  soul.     Physical  death  is  not  the  termination 


v.u]  JOB'S  QUESTION,  JESUS  ANSWER  47 

of  human  life.  The  grim  fact  touches  only  the  surface 
life,  and  has  nothing  to  do  with  the  essential,  personal 
being.  He  that  believes  on  Jesus,  and  he  only,  truly 
lives,  and  his  union  with  Jesus  secures  his  possession 
of  that  eternal  life,  which  victoriously  persists  through 
the  apparent,  superficial  change  which  men  call  death. 
Nothing  dies  but  the  death  which  surrounds  the  faith- 
ful soul.  For  it  to  die  is  to  live  more  fully,  more 
triumphantly,  more  blessedly.  So  though  the  act  of 
physical  death  remains,  its  whole  character  is  changed. 
Hence  the  New  Testament  euphemisms  for  death  are 
much  more  than  euphemisms.  Men  christen  it  by 
names  which  drape  its  ugliness,  because  they  fear  it 
so  much,  but  Faith  can  play  with  Leviathan,  because 
it  fears  it  not  at  all.  Hence  such  names  as  'sleep,' 
'  exodus,'  are  tokens  of  the  victory  won  for  all  believers 
by  Jesus.  He  will  show  Martha  the  hope  for  all  His 
followers  which  begins  to  dawn  even  in  the  calling  of 
her  brother  back  from  the  grip  of  death.  And  He  shows 
us  the  great  truth  that  His  being  the  '  Life '  necessarily 
involved  His  being  also  the  '  Resurrection,'  for  His  life- 
communicating  work  could  not  be  accomplished  till 
His  all-quickening  vitality  had  flowed  over  into,  and 
flooded  with  its  own  conquering  tides,  not  only  the 
spirit  which  believes  but  its  humble  companion,  the 
soul,  and  its  yet  humbler,  the  body.  A  bodily  life  is 
essential  to  perfect  manliood,  and  Jesus  will  not  stay 
His  hand  till  every  bci'iever  is  full-summed  in  all  his 
powers,  and  is  perfect  in  body,  soul,  and  spirit,  after 
the  image  of  Hinr.  who  redeemed  Him. 

III.  The  pledf^e  for  the  truth  of  the  answer. 

The  words  r  i  Jesus  are  only  words.  These  precious 
words,  spok  ;n  to  that  one  weeping  sister  in  a  little 
Jewish  village,  and  which  have  brought  hope  to  millions 


48  THE  BOOK  OF  JOB  [ch.xiv. 

ever  since,  are  as  baseless  as  all  the  other  dreams  and 
longings  of  the  heart,  unless  Jesus  confirms  them  by 
fact.  If  He  did  not  rise  from  the  dead,  they  are  but 
another  of  the  noble,  exalted,  but  futile  delusions  of 
which  the  world  has  many  others.  If  Christ  be  not 
risen,  His  words  of  consolation  are  swelling  words  of 
emptiness;  His  whole  claims  are  ended,  and  the  age- 
old  question  which  Job  asked  is  unanswered  still,  and 
will  always  remain  unanswered.  If  Christ  be  not  risen, 
the  hopeless  colloquy  between  Jehovah  and  the  prophet 
sums  up  all  that  can  be  said  of  the  future  life :  '  Son  of 
man,  can  these  bones  live  ? '  And  I  answered,  '  O  Lord 
God,  Thou  knowest !' 

But  Christ's  resurrection  is  a  fact  which,  taken  in 
connection  with  His  words  while  on  earth,  endorses 
these  and  establishes  His  claims  to  be  the  Declarer  of 
the  name  of  God,  the  Saviour  of  the  world.  It  gives 
us  demonstration  of  the  continuity  of  life  through  and 
after  death.  Taken  along  with  His  ascension,  which 
is  but,  so  to  speak,  the  prolongation  of  the  point  into 
a  line,  it  declares  that  a  glorified  body  and  an  abode 
in  a  heavenly  home  are  waiting  for  all  who  by  faith 
become  here  partakers  in  Jesus  and  are  quickened  by 
sharing  in  His  life. 

So  in  despite  of  sense  and  doubt  and  fear,  notwith- 
standing teachers  who,  like  the  supercilious  philo- 
sophers on  Mars  Hill,  mock  when  they  hear  of  a  resur- 
rection from  the  dead,  we  shoald  rejoice  in  the  great 
light  which  has  shined  into  the  region  of  the  shadow 
of  death,  we  should  clasp  His  divine  and  most  faithful 
answer  to  that  old,  despairing  question,  as  the  anchor 
of  our  souls,  and  lift  up  our  hearts  in  thanksgiving  in 
the  triumphant  challenge,  'O  death!  \']2ere  is  thy 
sting?     O  grave !  where  is  thy  victory  ? ' 


KNOWLEDGE  AND  PEACE 

*  Acquaint  now  thyself  with  Him,  and  be  at  peace  :  thereby  good  shall  come 
unto  thee.'— Job  xxii.  21. 

In  the  sense  in  which  the  speaker  meant  them,  these 
words  are  not  true.  They  mean  little  more  than 
'It  pays  to  be  religious.'  What  kind  of  notion  of 
acquaintance  w4th  God  Eliphaz  may  have  had,  one 
scarcely  knows,  but  at  any  rate,  the  whole  meaning  of 
the  text  on  his  lips  is  poor  and  selfish. 

The  peace  promised  is  evidently  only  outward  tran- 
quillity and  freedom  from  trouble,  and  the  good  that  is 
to  come  to  Job  is  plainly  mere  worldly  prosperity.  This 
strain  of  thought  is  expressed  even  more  clearly  in 
that  extraordinary  bit  of  bathos,  which  with  solemn 
irony  the  great  dramatist  who  wrote  this  book  makes 
this  Eliphaz  utter  immediately  after  the  text,  'The 
Almighty  shall  be  thy  defence  and — thou  shalt  have 
I)lenty  of  silver  ! '  It  has  not  been  left  for  commercial 
Englishmen  to  recommend  religion  on  the  ground  that 
it  produces  successful  merchants  and  makes  the  best  of 
both  worlds. 

These  friends  of  Job's  all  err  in  believing  that  suffer- 
ing is  always  and  only  the  measure  of  sin,  and  that  you 
can  tell  a  man's  great  guilt  by  observing  his  great 
sorrows.  And  so  they  have  two  main  subjects  on 
which  they  preach  at  their  poor  friend,  pouring  vitriol 
into  his  wounds :  first,  how  wicked  he  must  be  to  be  so 
haunted  by  sorrows;  second,  how  surely  he  will  be 
delivered  if  he  will  only  be  religious  after  their  pattern, 
that  is,  speak  platitudes  of  conventional  devotion  and 
say,  I  submit. 

This  is  the  meaning  of  our  text  as  it  stands.    But  we 


50  THE  BOOK  OF  JOB         [ch.xxii. 

may  surely  find  a  higher  sense  in  which  it  is  true  and 
take  that  to  heart. 

I.  What  is  acquainting  oneself  with  God  ? 

The  first  thing  to  note  is  that  this  acquaintance 
depends  on  us.  So  then  there  must  have  been  a  pre- 
vious objective  manifestation  on  His  part.  Of  course 
there  must  be  a  God  to  know,  and  there  must  be  a  way 
of  knowing  Him.  For  us  Jesus  Christ  is  the  Revealer. 
What  men  know  of  God  apart  from  Him  is  dim, 
shadowy,  indistinct ;  it  lacks  certainty,  and  so  is  not 
knowledge.  I  venture  to  say  that  there  is  nothing 
between  cultivated  men  and  the  loss  of  certain  know- 
ledge of  God  and  conviction  of  His  Being,  but  the 
historical  revelation  of  Jesus  Christ.  The  Christ  reveals 
the  inmost  character  of  God,  and  that  not  in  words  but 
in  deeds.  Without  Him  no  man  knows  God ;  '  No  man 
knoweth  the  Father  save  the  Son,  and  he  to  whom  the 
Son  will  reveal  Him.' 

So  then  the  objective  revelation  having  been  made, 
we  must  on  our  part  embrace  that  revelation  as  ours. 
The  act  of  so  accepting  begins  with  the  familiar  act  of 
faith,  which  includes  both  an  exercise  of  the  under- 
standing, as  it  embraces  the  facts  of  Christ's  revelation 
of  the  Father,  and  of  the  will  as  it  casts  itself  upon 
and  submits  to  Him.  But  that  exercise  of  faith  is  but 
the  point  which  has  to  be  drawn  out  into  a  golden  line, 
woven  into  the  whole  length  of  a  life.  And  it  is  in  the 
continuity  of  that  line  that  the  average  Christian  so 
sadly  fails,  and  because  of  that  failure  his  acquaintance 
with  God  is  so  distant.  How  little  time  or  thought  we 
give  to  the  character  of  God  as  revealed  in  Jesus 
Christ!  We  must  be  on  intimate  terms  with  Him. 
To  know  God,  as  to  know  a  man,  we  must '  live  with ' 
Him,  must  summer  and  winter  with  Him,  must  bring 


V.21]        KNOWLEDGE  AND  PEACE  51 

Him  into  the  pettinesses  of  daily  life,  must  let  our  love 
set  to  Him,  must  be  in  sympathy  with  Him,  our  wills 
being  tuned  to  make  harmony  with  His,  our  whole 
nature  being  in  accord  with  His.  That  is  work  more 
than  enough  for  a  lifetime,  enough  to  task  it,  enough 
to  bless  it. 

II.  The  peace  of  acquaintance  with  God. 

Eliphaz  meant  nothing  more  than  mere  earthly  tran- 
quillity and  exemption  from  trouble,  but  his  words  are 
true  in  a  far  loftier  region. 

Knowledge  of  God  as  He  really  is  brings  peace, 
because  His  heart  is  full  of  love.  We  do  but  need  to 
know  the  actual  state  of  the  heart  of  God  towards  us 
to  be  lapped  and  folded  in  peace  that  nothing  outside 
of  God  and  ourselves  can  destroy.  If  we  lived  under 
the  constant  benediction  of  the  deepest  truth  in  the 
universe,  '  God  is  love,'  our  peace  would  be  full.  That 
is  enough,  if  we  believe  it  to  bring  peace.  The  thought 
of  God  which  alarms  and  terrifies  cannot  be  a  true 
thought.  But,  alas !  in  proportion  as  we  know  ourselves, 
it  becomes  difficult  to  believe  that  God  is  love.  The 
stings  of  conscience  hiss  prophecies  to  us  of  that  in  God 
which  cannot  but  be  antagonistic  to  that  in  us  which 
conscience  condemns.  Only  when  our  thought  of  God 
is  drawn  from  the  revelation  of  Him  in  Jesus  Christ, 
does  it  become  possible  for  any  man  to  grasp  in  one 
act  of  his  consciousness  the  conviction,  I  am  a  sinner, 
and  the  conquering  conviction,  God  is  Love,  and  only 
Love  to  me.  So  the  old  exhortation,  '  Acquaint  thyself 
with  God  and  be  at  peace,'  comes  to  be  in  Christian 
language :  '  Behold  God  in  Jesus,  and  thou  shalt  possess 
the  peace  of  God  to  keep  thy  heart  and  mind.' 

Knowledge  of  God  gives  peace,  because  in  it  we  find 
the  satisfaction  of  our  whole  nature.    Thereby  we  are 


52  THE  BOOK  OF  JOB         [ch.  xxii. 

freed  from  the  unrest  of  tumultuous  passions  and 
storms  of  self-will.  The  internecine  war  between  the 
better  and  the  worse  selves  within  ceases  to  rage, 
and  when  we  have  become  God's  friends,  that  in  us 
which  is  meant  to  rule  rules,  and  that  in  us  which 
is  meant  to  serve  serves,  and  the  inner  kingdom  is  no 
longer  torn  asunder  but  is  harmonised  with  itself. 

Knowledge  of  God  brings  peace  amid  all  changes,  for 
he  who  has  God  for  his  continual  Companion  draws 
little  of  his  supplies  from  without,  and  can  be  tranquil 
when  the  seas  roar  and  are  troubled  and  the  moun- 
tains are  cast  into  the  midst  of  the  sea.  He  bears  all 
his  treasures  with  him,  and  need  fear  no  loss  of  any 
real  good.  And  at  last  the  angel  of  peace  will  lead  us 
through  the  momentary  darkness  and  guide  us,  after 
a  passing  shadow  on  our  path,  into  '  the  land  of  peace 
wherein  we  trusted,'  while  yet  in  the  land  of  warfare. 
Jesus  still  whispers  the  ancient  salutation  with  which 
He  greeted  the  company  in  the  upper  room  on  the 
evening  of  the  day  of  resurrection,  as  He  comes  to  His 
servants  here,  and  it  will  be  His  welcome  to  them 
when  He  receives  them  above. 

III.  The  true  good  from  acquaintance  with  God. 

As  we  have  already  said,  Eliphaz  was  only  thinking, 
on  Old  Testament  lines,  that  prosperity  in  material 
things  was  the  theocratic  reward  of  allegiance  to 
Jehovah.  He  was  rubbing  vitriol  into  Job's  sores,  and 
avowedly  regarding  him  as  a  fear-inspiring  instance 
of  the  converse  principle.  But  we  have  a  better  mean- 
ing breathed  into  his  words,  since  Jesus  has  taught  us 
what  is  the  true  good  for  a  man  all  the  days  of  his  life. 
Acquaintance  with  God  is,  not  merely  procures,  good. 
To  know  Him,  to  clasp  Him  to  our  hearts  as  our 
Friend,  our  Infinite  Lover,  our  Source  of  all  peace  and 


V.21]       WHAT  LIFE  MAY  BE  MADE        58 

joy,  to  mould  our  wills  to  His  and  let  Him  dominate 
our  whole  selves,  to  seek  our  wellbeing  in  Him  alone — 
what  else  or  more  can  a  soul  need  to  be  filled  with  all 
good  ?  Acquaintance  with  God  brings  Him  in  all  His 
sufficiency  to  inhabit  else  empty  hearts.  It  changes 
the  worst,  according  to  the  judgment  of  sense,  into  the 
best,  transforming  sorrow  into  loving  discipline,  inter- 
preting its  meaning,  fitting  us  to  bear  it,  and  securing 
to  us  its  blessings.    To  him  that  is  a  friend  of  God, 

•  All  is  right  that  seems  most  wrong 
If  it  be  His  sweet  will.' 

To  be  acquainted  with  God  is  the  quintessence  of  good. 
•  This  is  life  eternal,  to  know  Thee,  the  only  true  God, 
and  Jesus  Christ  whom  Thou  hast  sent.' 


WHAT  LIFE  MAY  BE  MADE 

For  then  shalt  thou  have  thy  delight  in  the  Almighty,  and  shalt  lift  up  thy 
face  unto  God.  27.  Thou  shalt  make  thy  prayer  unto  Him,  and  He  shall  hear 
thee,  and  thou  shalt  pay  thy  vows.  28.  Thou  shalt  also  decree  a  thing,  and  it 
shall  he  established  unto  thee :  and  the  light  shall  shine  upon  thy  ways.  29. 
When  men  are  cast  down,  then  thou  shalt  say,  .  .  .  lifting  up ;  and  He  shall  save 
the  humble  person.'— Job  xxii.  26-29. 

These  words  are  a  fragment  of  one  of  the  speeches 
of  Job's  friends,  in  which  the  speaker  has  been  harping 
on  the  old  theme  that  affliction  is  the  consequence 
and  evidence  of  sin.  He  has  much  ado  to  square  his 
theory  with  facts,  and  especially  with  the  fact  which 
brought  him  to  Job's  dunghill.  But  he  gets  over  the 
difficulty  by  the  simple  method  of  assuming  that,  since 
his  theory  must  be  true,  there  must  be  unknown  facts 
which  vindicate  it  in  Job's  case;  and  since  affliction 
is  a  sign  of  sin,  Job's  afflictions  are  proof  that  he  has 
been  a  sinner.    So  he  charges  him  with  grossest  crimes, 


54  THE  BOOK  OF  JOB         [ch.  xxii. 

without  a  shadow  of  other  reason;  and  after  having 
poured  this  oil  of  vitriol  into  his  wounds  by  way  of 
consolation,  he  advises  him  to  be  good,  on  the  decidedly 
low  and  selfish  ground  that  it  will  pay. 

His  often-quoted  exhortation,  *  Acquaint  thyself  with 
God,  and  be  at  peace:  thereby  good  shall  come  unto 
thee,'  is,  in  his  meaning  of  it,  an  undisguised  appeal 
to  purely  selfish  considerations,  and  its  promise  is 
not  in  accordance  with  facts.  Whether  that  saying 
is  noble  and  true  or  ignoble  and  false,  depends  on  the 
meanings  attached  to  'peace'  and  'good.'  A  similar 
flaw  mars  the  words  of  our  text,  as  understood  by 
the  speaker.  But  they  can  be  raised  to  a  higher  level 
than  that  on  which  he  placed  them,  and  regarded  as 
describing  the  sweet  and  wonderful  prerogatives  of 
the  devout  life.  So  understood,  they  may  rebuke  and 
stimulate  and  encourage  us  to  make  our  lives  con- 
formed to  the  ideal  here. 

I.  I  note,  first,  that  life  may  be  full  of  delight  and 
confidence  in  God. 

'Then  shalt  thou  delight  thyself  in  the  Almighty, 
and  shalt  lift  up  thy  face  unto  God.'  Now  when  we 
•delight'  in  a  thing  or  a  person,  we  recognise  that 
that  thing,  or  person,  fits  into  a  cleft  in  our  hearts, 
and  corresponds  to  some  need  in  our  natures.  We 
not  only  recognise  its  good,  sweetness,  and  adaptation 
to  ourselves,  but  we  actually  possess  in  real  fruition 
the  sweetness  that  we  recognise,  and  the  good  which 
we  apprehend  in  it.  And  so  these  things,  the  recog- 
nition of  th©  supreme  sweetness  and  all-perfect  adap- 
tation and  sufficiency  of  God  to  all  that  I  need ;  the 
suppression  of  tastes  and  desires  which  may  conflict 
with  that  sweetness,  and  the  actual  enjoyment  and 
fruition  of  the  sweetness  and  preciousness  which  I 


vs.  26-29]    WHAT  LIFE  MAY  BE  MADE     55 

apprehend — these  things  are  the  very  heart  of  a  man's 
religion.  Without  delight  in  God,  there  is  no  real 
religion. 

The  bulk  of  men  are  so  sunken  and  embruted  in 
animal  tastes  and  sensuous  desires  and  fleeting  delights, 
that  they  have  no  care  for  the  pure  and  calm  joys 
which  come  to  those  who  live  near  God.  But  above 
these  stand  the  men,  of  whom  there  are  a  good  many 
amongst  us,  whose  religion  is  a  matter  of  fear  or  of 
duty  or  of  effort.  And  above  them  there  stand  the 
men  who  serve  because  they  trust  God,  but  whose 
religion  is  seeking  rather  than  finding,  and  either 
from  deficient  consecration  or  from  false  conceptions 
of  Him  and  of  their  relation  to  Him,  is  overshadowed 
by  an  unnatural  and  unwholesome  gloom.  And  all 
these  kinds  of  religion,  the  religion  of  fear,  of  duty, 
of  effort,  of  seeking,  and  of  doubt  fighting  with  faith, 
are  at  the  best  wofully  imperfect,  and  are,  some  of 
them,  radically  erroneous  types  of  the  religious  life. 
He  is  the  truly  devout  man  who  not  only  knows 
God  to  be  great  and  holy,  but  feels  Him  to  be  sweet 
and  sufficient ;  who  not  only  fears,  but  loves ;  who  not 
only  seeks  and  longs,  but  possesses;  or,  in  one  word, 
true  religion  is  delighting  in  God. 

So  herein  is  supplied  a  very  sharp  test  for  us.  Do 
our  tastes  and  inclinations  set  towards  Him,  and  is 
He  better  to  us  than  anything  beside?  Is  God  to 
me  my  dearest  faith,  the  very  home  of  my  heart,  to 
which  I  instinctively  turn?  Is  the  brightness  of  my 
day  the  light  of  His  face  ?  Is  He  the  gladness  of  my 
joy?  Is  my  Christianity  a  mill-horse  round  of  service 
that  I  am  not  glad  to  render  ?  Do  I  worship  because 
I  think  it  is  duty,  and  are  my  prayers  compulsory  and 
mechanical;  or  do  I  worship  because  miy  heart  goes 


56  THE  BOOK  OF  JOB         [ch.  xxii. 

out  to  Him  ?  And  is  my  life  calm  and  sweet  because 
I  'delight  in  the  Lord'? 

The  next  words  of  my  text  will  help  us  to  answer. 
'Thou  shalt  lift  up  thy  face  unto  God.'  That  is  a 
clear  enough  metaphor  to  express  frank  confidence  of 
approach  to  Him,  The  head  hangs  down  in  the  con- 
sciousness of  demerit  and  sin.  'Mine  iniquities  have 
taken  hold  upon  me,'  wailed  the  Psalmist,  'so  that  I 
am  not  able  to  look  up.'  But  it  is  possible  for  men 
to  go  into  God's  presence  with  a  sense  of  peace,  and 
to  hold  up  their  heads  before  their  Judge  and  look 
Him  in  the  eyes  and  not  be  afraid.  And  unless  we 
have  that  confidence  in  Him,  not  because  of  our 
merits,  but  because  of  His  certain  love,  there  will  be 
no  'delight  in  the  Lord.'  And  there  will  be  no  such 
confidence  in  Him  unless  we  have  'access  with  con- 
fidence by  faith'  in  that  Christ  who  has  taken  away 
our  sins,  and  prepared  the  way  for  us  into  the  Father's 
presence,  and  by  whose  death  and  sacrifice,  and  by  it 
alone,  we  sinful  men,  with  open  face  and  uplifted 
foreheads,  can  stand  to  receive  upon  our  visage  the 
full  beams  of  His  light,  and  expatiate  and  be  glad 
therein.  There  is  no  religion  worth  naming,  of  which 
the  inmost  characteristic  is  not  delight  in  God.  There 
is  no  '  delighting  in  God '  possible  for  sinful  men  unless 
they  can  come  to  Him  with  frank  confidence,  and 
there  is  no  such  confidence  possible  for  us  unless  we 
apprehend  by  faith,  and  thereby  make  our  own,  the 
great  work  of  Jesus  Christ  our  Lord. 

II.  So,  secondly,  note,  such  a  life  of  delighting  in 
God  will  be  blessed  by  the  frankest  intercourse  with 
Him. 

'  Thou  shalt  make  thy  prayer  unto  Him,  .and  He 
shall  hear  thee,  and  thou  shalt  pay  thy  vows.'    These 


vs. 26-29]     WHAT  LIFE  MAY  BE  MADE     57 

are  three  stages  of  this  blessed  communion  that  is 
possible  for  men.  And  note,  prayer  is  not  regarded 
in  this  aspect  as  duty,  nor  is  it  even  dwelt  upon  as 
privilege,  but  as  being  the  natural  outcome  and  issue 
of  that  delighting  in  God  and  confident  access  to  Him 
which  have  preceded.  That  is  to  say,  if  a  man  really 
has  set  his  heart  on  God,  and  knows  that  in  Him  is  all 
that  he  needs,  then,  of  course,  he  will  tell  Him  every- 
thing. As  surely  as  the  sunshine  draws  out  the  odours 
from  the  opening  petals  of  the  flowers,  will  the  warmth 
of  the  felt  divine  light  and  love  draw  from  our  hearts 
the  sweet  confidence,  which  it  is  impossible  not  to  give 
to  Him  in  whom  we  delight. 

If  you  have  to  be  driven  to  prayer  by  a  sense  of 
duty,  and  if  there  be  no  impulse  in  your  heart  whisper- 
ing ever  to  you,  '  Tell  your  Love  about  it ! '  you  have 
much  need  to  examine  into  the  reality,  and  certainly 
into  the  depth  of  your  religion.  For  as  surely  as 
instinctive  impulse,  which  needs  no  spurring  from 
conscience  or  will,  leads  us  to  breathe  our  confidences 
to  those  that  we  love  best,  and  makes  us  restless  whilst 
we  have  a  secret  hid  from  them,  so  surely  will  a  true 
love  to  God  make  it  the  most  natural  thing  in  the 
world  to  put  all  our  circumstances,  wants,  and  feeling 
into  the  shape  of  prayers.  They  may  be  in  briefest 
words.  They  may  scarcely  be  vocalised  at  all,  but 
there  will  be,  if  there  be  a  true  love  to  Him,  an 
instinctive  turning  to  Him  in  every  circumstance ;  and 
the  single-worded  cry,  if  it  be  no  more,  for  help  is 
sufficient.  The  arrow  may  be  shot  towards  Heaven, 
though  it  be  but  slender  and  short,  and  it  will  reach 
its  goal. 

For  my  text  goes  on  to  the  second  stage,  *  He  shall 
hear  thee.'    That  was  not  true  as  Eliphaz  meant  it. 


58  THE  BOOK  OF  JOB         [ch.xxii. 

But  it  is  true  if  we  remember  the  preceding  conditions. 
The  fundamental  passage,  which  I  suppose  underlies 
part,  at  least,  of  our  text,  is  that  great  word  in  the 
psalm,  '  Delight  thyself  in  the  Lord,  and  He  shall 
give  thee  the  desires  of  thine  heart.'  Does  that  mean 
that  if  a  man  loves  God  he  may  get  everything  he 
wants?  Yes!  and  No!  If  it  is  supposed  to  mean 
that  our  religion  is  a  kind  of  key  to  God's  storehouse, 
enabling  us  to  go  in  there  and  rifle  it  at  our  pleasure, 
then  it  is  not  true ;  if  it  means  that  a  man  who  delights 
himself  in  God  will  have  his  supreme  desire  set  upon 
God,  and  so  will  be  sure  to  get  it,  then  it  is  true. 
Fulfil  the  conditions  and  you  are  sure  of  the  promise. 
If  our  prayer  in  its  deepest  essence  be  'Not  my  will, 
but  Thine,'  it  will  be  answered.  When  the  desires 
of  our  heart  are  for  God,  and  for  conformity  to  His 
will,  as  they  will  be  when  we  'delight  ourselves  in 
Him,'  then  we  get  our  heart's  desires.  There  :s  no 
promise  of  our  being  able  to  impose  our  wills  upon 
God,  which  would  be  a  calamity,  and  not  a  blessing, 
but  a  promise  that  they  who  make  Him  their  joy  and 
their  desire  will  never  be  defrauded  of  their  desire  nor 
robbed  of  their  joy. 

And  so  the  third  stage  of  this  frank  intercourse 
comes.  'Thou  shalt  pay  thy  vows.'  All  life  may 
become  a  thank-offering  to  God  for  the  benefits  that 
have  flowed  unceasing  from  His  hands.  First  a  prayer, 
then  the  answer,  then  the  rendered  thank-offering. 
Thus,  in  swift  alternation  and  reciprocity,  is  carried 
on  the  commerce  between  Heaven  and  earth,  between 
man  and  God.  The  desires  rise  to  Heaven,  but  Heaven 
comes  down  to  earth  first;  and  prayer  is  not  the 
initial  stage,  but  the  second,  in  the  process.  God  first 
gives  His  promise,  and  the  best  prayer  is  the  catching 


vs.  26-29]     WHAT  LIFE  MAY  BE  MADE    59 

up  of  God's  promise  and  tossing  it  back  again  whence 
it  came.  Then  comes  the  second  downward  motion, 
which  is  the  answer  to  prayer,  in  blessing,  and  on  it 
follows,  finally,  the  reflection  upwards,  in  thankful 
surrender  and  service,  of  the  love  that  has  descended 
on  us,  in  answer  to  our  desires.  So  like  sunbeams 
from  a  mirror,  or  heat  from  polished  metal,  backwards 
and  forwards,  in  continual  alternation  and  reciproca- 
tion of  influence  and  of  love,  flash  and  travel  bright 
gleams  between  the  soul  and  God.  'Truth  springs 
out  of  the  earth,  and  righteousness  looks  down  from 
Heaven.  Our  God  shall  give  that  which  is  good,  and 
the  earth  shall  yield  her  increase.'  Is  there  any  other 
life  of  which  such  alternation  is  the  privilege  and  the 

joy? 

III.  Then  thirdly,  such  a  life  will  neither  know  failure 
nor  darkness. 

'Thou  shalt  also  decree  a  thing,  and  it  shall  be 
established  unto  thee,  and  the  light  shall  shine  upon 
thy  ways.'  Then  is  my  will  to  be  omnipotent,  and  am 
I  to  be  delivered  from  the  experiences  of  disappoint- 
ments and  failures  and  frustrated  plans  that  are 
common  to  all  humanity,  and  an  essential  part  of  its 
discipline,  because  I  am  a  Christian  man?  Eliphaz 
may  have  meant  that,  but  we  know  something  far 
nobler.  Again,  I  say,  remember  the  conditions  pre- 
cedent. First  of  all,  there  must  be  the  delight  in  God, 
and  the  desire  towards  Him,  the  submission  of  the 
will  to  Him,  and  the  waiting  before  Him  for  guidance. 
I  decree  a  thing — if  I  am  a  true  Christian,  and  in  the 
measure  in  which  I  am — only  when  I  am  quite  sure 
that  God  has  decreed  it.  And  it  is  only  His  decrees, 
registered  in  the  chancery  of  my  will,  of  which  I  may 
be  certain  that  they  shall  be  established.    There  will 


60  THE  BOOK  OF  JOB  [ch.xxii. 

be  no  failures  to  the  man  whose  life's  purpose  is  to 
serve  God,  and  to  grow  like  Him ;  but  if  our  purpose 
is  anything  less  than  that,  or  if  we  go  arbitrarily  and 
self-willedly  resolving  and  saying,  'Thus  I  will;  thus 
I  command ;  let  my  will  stand  instead  of  all  reason, 
we  shall  have  our  contemptuous  'decrees'  disestab- 
lished many  a  time.  If  we  run  our  heads  against 
stone  walls  in  that  fashion,  the  walls  will  stand,  and 
our  heads  will  be  broken.  To  serve  Him  and  to  fall 
into  the  line  of  His  purpose,  and  to  determine  nothing, 
nor  obstinately  want  anything  until  we  are  sure  that 
it  is  His  will — that  is  the  secret  of  never  failing  in 
what  we  undertake. 

We  must  understand  a  little  more  deeply  than  we 
are  apt  to  do  what  is  meant  by  '  success,'  before  we 
predict  unfailing  success  for  any  man.  But  if  we  have 
obeyed  the  commandment  from  the  psalm  already 
quoted,  which  may  be  again  alluded  to  in  the  words 
of  my  text — 'Commit  thy  way  unto  the  Lord;  trust 
also  in  Him' — we  shall  inherit  the  ancient  promise, 
'and  He  shall  bring  it  to  pass.'  'AH  things  work 
together  for  good  to  them  that  love  God,'  and  in  the 
measure  of  our  love  to  Him  are  our  discernment  and 
realisation  of  what  is  truly  good.  Religion  gives  no 
screen  to  keep  the  weather  off  us,  but  it  gives  us  an 
insight  into  the  truth  that  storms  and  rain  are  good 
for  the  only  crop  that  is  worth  growing  here.  If  we 
understand  what  we  are  here  for,  we  shall  be  very 
slow  to  call  sorrow  evil,  and  to  crown  joy  with  the 
exclusive  title  of  blessing  and  good ;  and  we  shall  have 
a  deeper  canon  of  interpretation  for  the  words  of  my 
text  than  he  who  is  represented  as  speaking  them  ever 
dreamed  of. 

So  with  the  promise  of  light  to  shine  upon  our  paths. 


vs.  86-29]     WHAT  LIFE  MAY  BE  MADE     61 

It  is  'the  light  which  never  was  on  sea  or  land,'  and 
not  the  material  light  which  sense-bound  eyes  can  see. 
That  may  all  go.  But  if  we  have  God  in  our  hearts, 
there  will  be  a  light  upon  our  way  'which  knows  no 
variableness,  neither  shadow  of  turning.'  The  Arctic 
winter,  sunless  though  it  be,  has  a  bright  heaven 
radiant  with  myriad  stars,  and  flashing  with  strange 
lights  born  of  no  material  or  visible  orb.  And  so  you 
and  I,  if  we  delight  ourselves  '  in  the  Lord,'  will  have 
an  unsetting  sun  to  light  our  paths ;  '  and  at  eventide,' 
and  in  the  mirkest  midnight,  '  there  will  be  light '  in 
the  darkness. 

IV.  Lastly,  such  a  life  will  be  always  hopeful,  and 
finally  crowned  with  deliverance. 

'When  they' — that  is,  the  ways  that  he  has  been 
speaking  about — '  when  they  are  cast  down,  thou  shalt 
say,  Lifting  up.'  That  is  an  exclamation  or  a  prayer, 
and  we  might  simply  render,  'thou  shalt  say.  Up!' 
Even  in  so  blessed  a  life  as  has  been  described,  times 
will  come  when  the  path  plunges  downwards  into 
some  '  valley  of  the  shadow  of  death.'  But  even  then 
the  traveller  will  bate  no  jot  of  hope.  He  will  in  his 
heart  say  '  Up ! '  even  while  sense  says  *  Down ! '  either  as 
expressing  indomitable  confidence  and  good  cheer  in 
the  face  of  depressing  circumstances,  or  as  pouring 
out  a  prayer  to  Him  who  'has  showed  him  great 
and  sore  troubles '  that  He  would  '  bring  him  up  again 
from  the  depths  of  the  earth.'  The  devout  life  is 
largely  independent  of  circumstances,  and  is  upheld 
and  calmed  by  a  quiet  certainty  that  the  general 
trend  of  its  path  is  upward,  which  enables  it  to  trudge 
hopefully  down  an  occasional  dip  in  the  road. 

Such  an  obstinate  hopefulness  and  cheery  confidence 
are  the  natural  result  of  the  experiences  already  de- 


62  THE  BOOK  OF  JOB  [ch.  xxii. 

scribed  in  the  text.  If  we  delight  in  God,  hold  com- 
munion with  Him  and  have  known  Him  as  answering 
prayer,  prospering  our  purposes  and  illuminating  our 
paths,  how  shall  we  not  hope  ?  Nothing  need  depress 
nor  perturb  those  whose  joys  and  treasures  are  safe 
above  the  region  of  change  and  loss.  If  our  riches 
are  there  where  neither  moth,  rust,  nor  thieves  can 
reach,  our  hearts  will  be  there  also,  and  an  inward 
voice  will  keep  singing,  '  Lift  up  your  heart.'  It  is  the 
prerogative  of  experience  to  light  up  the  future.  It 
is  the  privilege  of  Christian  experience  to  make  hope 
certainty.  If  we  live  the  life  outlined  in  these  verses 
we  shall  be  able  to  bring  June  into  December,  and 
feel  the  future  warmth  whilst  our  bones  are  chilled 
with  the  present  cold.  '  When  the  paths  are  made  low, 
thou  shalt  say,  Up ! ' 

And  the  end  will  vindicate  such  confidence.  For 
the  issue  of  all  will  be,  'He  will  save  the  humble 
person';  namely,  the  man  who  is  of  the  character 
described,  and  w^ho  is  '  lowly  of  eyes '  in  conscious  un- 
worthiness,  even  while  he  lifts  up  his  face  to  God  in 
confidence  in  his  Father's  love.  The  'saving'  meant 
here  is,  of  course,  temporary  and  temporal  deliverance 
from  passing  outward  peril.  But  we  may  permissibly 
give  it  wider  and  deeper  meaning.  Continuous  partial 
deliverances  lead  on  to  and  bring  about  final  full 
salvation. 

We  read  that  into  the  words,  of  course.  But  nothing 
less  than  a  complete  and  conclusive  deliverance  can  be 
the  legitimate  end  of  the  experience  of  the  Christian 
life  here.  Absurdity  can  no  further  go  than  to  suppose 
that  a  soul  which  has  delighted  itself  in  God,  and 
looked  in  His  face  with  frank  confidence,  and  poured 
out  his  desires  to  Him,  and  been    the    recipient    of 


V8.2G-29]     'THE  P:ND  of  the  LORD'         63 

numberless  answers,  aud  the  seat  of  numberless  thank- 
offerings,  has  travelled  along  life's  common  way  in 
cheerful  godliness,  has  had  the  light  of  heaven  shining 
on  the  path,  and  has  found  an  immortal  hope  springing 
as  the  natural  result  of  present  experience,  shall  at 
the  last  be  frustrated  of  all,  and  lie  down  in  unconscious 
sleep,  which  is  nothingness.  If  that  were  the  end  of 
a  Christian  life,  then  'the  pillared  firmament  were 
rottenness,  and  earth's  base  built  on  stubble.'  No,  no  ! 
A  heaven  of  endless  blessedness  and  close  communion 
with  God  is  the  only  possible  ending  to  the  facts  of  the 
devout  life  on  earth. 

We  have  such  a  life  offered  to  us  all  and  made 
possible  through  faith  in  Jesus  Christ,  in  whom  we 
may  delight  ourselves  in  the  Lord,  by  whom  we  have 
'access  with  confidence,'  who  is  Himself  the  light  of 
our  hope,  the  answer  of  our  prayers,  the  joy  of  our 
hearts,  and  who  will '  deliver  us  from  every  evil  work' 
as  we  travel  along  the  road ;  '  and  save  us '  at  last  •  into 
His  heavenly  kingdom,'  where  we  shall  be  joined  to 
the  Delight  of  our  souls,  and  drink  for  evermore  of  the 
fountain  of  life. 


*THE  END  OF  THE  LORD' 

•  Then  Job  answered  the  Lord,  and  said,  2.  I  know  that  Thou  canst  do  every 
thing,  and  that  no  thought  can  be  withhold  en  from  Thee.  3.  Who  is  he  that  hideth 
counsel  without  knowledge?  therefore  have  I  uttered  that  I  understood  not; 
things  too  wonderful  for  me,  which  I  knew  not.  4.  Hear,  I  beseech  Thee,  and  I  will 
speak :  I  will  demand  of  Thee,  and  declare  Thou  unto  me.  5. 1  have  heard  of  Thee 
by  the  hearing  of  the  ear  :  but  now  mine  eye  seeth  Thee.  6.  Wherefore  I  abhor 
myself,  and  repent  in  dust  and  ashes.  7.  And  it  was  so,  that  after  the  Lord  had 
spoken  these  words  unto  Job,  the  Lord  said  to  Eliphazthe  Temanite,  My  wrath  is 
kindled  against  thee,  and  against  thy  two  friends :  for  ye  have  not  spoken  of  Me 
the,  thing  that  is  right,  as  My  servant  Job  hath.  8.  Therefore  take  unto  you  now 
Beven  bullocks  and  seven  rams,  and  go  to  My  servant  Job,  and  offer  up  for  your- 
selves a  burnt  offering;  and  My  servant  Job  shall  pray  for  you:  for  him  will  I 
accept :  lest  I  deal  with  you  after  your  folly,  in  that  ye  have  not  spoken  of  Me  the 
thing  which  is  right,  like  My  servant  Job.    9.  So  Eliphaz  the  Temanite  and  Bildad 


64  THE  HOOK  OF  JOB  [ch.  xlii. 

the  Shuhite  and  Zophar  the  NaamathUe  went,  and  did  according  as  the  Lord 
commanded  them:  the  Lord  also  accepted  Job.  10.  And  the  Lord  turned  the 
captivity  of  Job,  when  he'prayed  for  liis  friends :  also  the  Lord  gave  Job  twice  as 
much  as  he  had  before.'— Job  xlii.  1-10. 

The  close  of  the  Book  of  Job  must  be  taken  in  connec- 
tion with  its  prologue,  in  order  to  get  the  full  view 
of  its  solution  of  the  mystery  of  pain  and  suffering. 
Indeed  the  prologue  is  more  completely  the  solution 
than  the  ending  is ;  for  it  shows  the  purpose  of  Job's 
trials  as  being,  not  his  punishment,  but  his  testing. 
The  whole  theory  that  individual  sorrows  were  the 
result  of  individual  sins,  in  the  support  of  which  Job's 
friends  poured  out  so  many  eloquent  and  heartless 
commonplaces,  is  discredited  from  the  beginning.  The 
magnificent  prologue  shows  the  source  and  purpose 
of  sorrow.  The  epilogue  in  this  last  chapter  shows 
the  effect  of  it  in  a  good  man's  character,  and  after- 
wards in  his  life. 

So  we  have  the  grim  thing  lighted  up,  as  it  were,  at 
the  two  ends.  Suffering  comes  with  the  mission  of 
trying  what  stuff  a  man  is  made  of,  and  it  leads  to 
closer  knowledge  of  God,  which  is  blessed;  to  lowlier 
self-estimation,  which  is  also  blessed ;  and  to  renewed 
outward  blessings,  which  hide  the  old  scars  and  gladden 
the  tortured  heart. 

Job's  final  word  to  God  is  in  beautiful  contrast  with 
much  of  his  former  unmeasured  utterances.  It  breathes 
lowliness,  submission,  and  contented  acquiescence  in  a 
providence  partially  understood.  It  does  not  put  into 
Job's  mouth  a  solution  of  the  problem,  but  shows  how 
its  pressure  is  lightened  by  getting  closer  to  God. 
Each  verse  presents  a  distinct  element  of  thought 
and  feeling. 

First  comes,  remarkably  enough,  not  what  might 
have  been  expected,  namely,  a  recognition  of  God's 


vs.  1-10]     *THE  END  OF  THE  LORD'  65 

righteousness,  which  had  been  the  attribute  impugned 
by  Job's  hasty  words,  but  of  His  omnipotence.    God 
•can  do  everything,'  and  none  of  His  'thoughts'  or 
purposes  can  be  'restrained'  (Rev.  Yer.).    There  had 
been  frequent  recognitions  of  that  attribute  in  the 
earlier  speeches,  but  these  had  lacked  the  element  of 
submission,  and   been    complaint  rather  than  adora- 
tion.     Now,  the   same  conviction  has  different  com- 
panions in  Job's  mind,  and  so  has  different  effects,  and 
is  really  different  in  itself.    The  Titan  on  his  rock,  with 
the  vulture  tearing  at  his  liver,  sullenly  recognised 
Jove's  power,  but  was  a  rebel  still.    Such  had  been 
Job's  earlier  attitude,  but  now  that  thought  comes 
to  him  along  with  submission,  and  so  is  blessed.    Its 
recurrence  here,  as  in  a  very  real  sense  a  new  convic- 
tion, teaches  us  how  old  beliefs  may  flash  out  into  new 
significance  when  seen  from  a  fresh  point  of  view,  and 
how  the  very  same  thought  of  God  may  be  an  argu- 
ment for  arraigning  and  for  vindicating  His  providence. 
The  prominence  given,  both  in  the  magnificent  chap- 
ters in  which  God  answers  Job  out  of  the  whirlwind 
and  in  this  final  confession,  to  power  instead  of  good- 
ness, rests   upon    the    unspoken    principle    that  'the 
divine  nature  is  not  a  segment,  but  a  circle.    Any  one 
divine  attribute  implies  all  others.    Omnipotence  can- 
not exist  apart  from  righteousness'  (Davidson's  Job, 
Cambridge  Bible  for  Schools).     A  mere  naked  omni- 
potence is  not  God.      If  we   rightly  understand  His 
power,  we  can  rest  upon  it  as  a  Hand  sustaining,  not 
crushing,  us.     'He  doeth  all  things  well'  is  a  conviction 
as  closely  connected  with  '  I  know  that  Thou  canst 
do  all  things'  as  light  is  with  heat. 

The  second  step  in  Job's  confession  is  the  acknow- 
ledgment of  the  incompleteness  of  his  and  all  men's 

B 


66  THE  BOOK  OF  JOB  [ch.  xlii. 

materials  and  capacities  for  judging  God's  providence. 
Verse  3  begins  with  quoting  God's  rebuke  (Job  xxxviii.  2). 
It  had  cut  deep,  and  now  Job  makes  it  his  own  confes- 
sion. We  should  thus  appropriate  as  our  own  God's 
merciful  indictments,  and  when  He  asks,  '  Who  is  it  ? ' 
should  answer  with  lowliness, '  Lor(^  it  is  I.'  Job  had 
been  a  critic;  he  is  a  worshipper.  He  had  tried  to 
fathom  the  bottomless,  and  been  angry  because  his 
short  measuring-line  had  not  reached  the  depths. 
But  now  he  acknowledges  that  he  had  been  talk- 
ing about  what  passed  his  comprehension,  and 
also  that  his  words  had  been  foolish  in  their  rash- 
ness. 

Is  then  the  solution  of  the  whole  only  that  old 
commonplace  of  the  unsearchableness  of  the  divine 
judgments?  Not  altogether;  for  the  prologue  gives, 
if  not  a  complete,  yet  a  real,  key  to  them.  But  still, 
after  all  partial  solutions,  there  remains  the  inscrut- 
able element  in  them.  The  mystery  of  pain  and  suffer- 
ing is  still  a  mystery ;  and  while  general  principles, 
taught  us  even  more  clearly  in  the  New  Testament 
than  in  this  book,  do  lighten  the  'weight  of  all  this 
unintelligible  world,'  we  have  still  to  take  Job's  language 
as  the  last  word  on  the  matter,  and  say,  'How  un- 
searchable are  His  judgments,  and  His  ways  past 
finding  out ! ' 

For  individuals,  and  on  the  wider  field  of  the  world, 
God's  way  is  in  the  sea;  but  that  does  not  bewilder 
those  who  also  know  that  it  is  also  in  the  sanctuary. 
Job's  confession  as  to  his  rash  speeches  is  the  best 
estimate  of  many  elaborate  attempts  to  '  vindicate  the 
ways  of  God  to  man.'  It  is  better  to  trust  than  to 
criticise,  better  to  wait  than  to  seek  prematurely  to 
understand. 


vs.  1-10]     «THE  END  OF  THE  LORD'  67 

Verse  4,  like  verse  3,  quotes  the  words  of  God 
(Job  xxxviii.  3 ;  xl.  7).  They  yield  a  good  meaning,  if 
regarded  as  a  repetition  of  God's  challenge,  for  the 
purpose  of  disclaiming  any  such  presumptuous  contest. 
But  they  are  perhaps  better  understood  as  expressing 
Job's  longing,  in  his  new  condition  of  humility,  for 
fuller  light,  and  his  new  recognition  of  the  way  to 
pierce  to  a  deeper  understanding  of  the  mystery,  by 
illumination  from  God  granted  in  answer  to  his  prayer. 
He  had  tried  to  solve  his  problem  by  much,  and  some- 
times barely  reverent,  thinking.  He  had  racked  brain 
and  heart  in  the  effort,  but  he  has  learned  a  more 
excellent  way,  as  the  Psalmist  had,  who  said,  'When  I 
thought,  in  order  to  know  this,  it  was  too  painful  for 
me,  until  I  went  into  the  sanctuary  of  God ;  then 
understood  I.'  Prayer  will  do  more  for  clearing  mys- 
teries than  speculation,  however  acute,  and  it  will 
change  the  aspect  of  the  mysteries  which  it  does  not 
clear  from  being  awful  to  being  solemn — veils  covering 
depths  of  love,  not  clouds  obscuring  the  sun. 

The  centre  of  all  Job's  confession  is  in  verse  5,  which 
contrasts  his  former  and  present  knowledge  of  God, 
as  being  mere  hearsay  before,  and  eyesight  now.  A 
clearer  understanding,  but  still  more,  a  sense  of  His 
nearness,  and  an  acquaintance  at  first  hand,  are  im- 
plied in  the  bold  words,  which  must  not  be  interpreted 
of  any  outward  revelation  to  sense,  but  of  the  direct, 
full,  hrilling  consciousness  of  God  which  makes  all 
men's  words  about  Him  seem  poor.  That  change  was 
the  master  transformation  in  Job's  case,  as  it  is  for 
us  all.  Get  closer  to  God,  realise  His  presence,  live 
beneath  His  eye  and  with  your  eyes  fixed  on  Him,  and 
ancient  puzzles  will  puzzle  no  longer,  and  wounds  will 
cease  to  smart,  and  instead  of  angry  expostulation  or 


68  THE  BOOK  OF  JOB  [ch.xlii. 

bewildered  attempts  at  construing  His  dealings,  there 
will  come  subm^ission,  and  with  submission,  peace. 

The  cure  for  questionings  of  His  providence  is  ejc- 
perience  of  His  nearness,  and  blessedness  therein. 
Things  that  loomed  large  dwindle,  and  dangers  melt 
away.  The  landscape  is  the  same  in  shadow  and  sun- 
shine ;  but  when  the  sun  comes  out,  even  snow  and  ice 
sparkle,  and  tender  beauty  starts  into  visibility  in  grim 
things.  So,  if  we  see  God,  the  black  places  of  life  are 
lighted ;  and  we  cease  to  feel  the  pressure  of  many 
difficulties  of  speculation  and  practice,  both  as  regards 
His  general  providence  and  His  revelation  in  law  and 
gospel. 

The  end  of  the  whole  matter  is  Job's  retractation  of 
his  words  and  his  repentance.  '  I  abhor '  has  no  object 
expressed,  and  is  better  taken  as  referring  to  the 
previous  speeches  than  to  '  myself.'  He  means  thereby 
to  withdraw  them  all.  The  next  clause,  'I  repent  in 
dust  and  ashes,'  carries  the  confession  a  step  farther. 
He  recognises  guilt  in  his  rash  speeches,  and  bows 
before  his  God  confessing  his  sin.  Where  are  his 
assertions  of  innocence  gone  ?  One  sight  of  God  has 
scattered  them,  as  it  ever  does.  A  man  who  has  learned 
his  own  sinfulness  will  find  few  difficulties  and  no 
occasions  for  complaint  in  God's  dealings  with  him. 
If  we  would  see  aright  the  meaning  of  our  sorrows,  we 
must  look  at  them  on  our  knees.  Get  near  to  God  in 
heart-knowledge  of  Him,  and  that  will  teach  our  sinful- 
ness, and  the  two  knowledges  will  combine  to  explain 
much  of  the  meaning  of  sorrow,  and  to  make  the  un- 
explained residue  not  hard  to  endure. 

The  epilogue  in  prose  which  follows  Job's  confession, 
tells  of  the  divine  estimate  of  the  three  friends,  of 
Job's  sacrifice  for  them,  and  of  his  renewed  outward 


v..  1-10]     'THE  END  OF  THE  LORD*  69 

prosperity.  The  men  who  had  tried  to  vindicate  God's 
righteousness  are  charged  with  not  having  spoken 
that  which  is  right;  the  man  who  has  passionately 
impugned  it  is  declared  to  have  thus  spoken.  No 
doubt,  Eliphaz  and  his  colleagues  had  said  a  great 
many  most  excellent,  pious  things,  and  Job  as  many 
wild  and  untrue  ones.  But  their  foundation  principle 
was  not  a  true  representation  of  God's  providence, 
since  it  was  the  uniform  connection  of  sin  with  sorrow, 
and  the  accurate  proportion  which  these  bore  to  each 
other. 

Job,  on  the  other  hand,  had  spoken  truth  in  his 
denials  of  these  principles,  and  in  his  longings  to  have 
the  righteousness  of  God  set  in  clear  relation  to  his 
own  afflictions.  We  must  remember,  too,  that  the 
friends  were  talking  commonplaces  learned  by  rote, 
while  Job's  words  came  scalding  hot  from  his  heart. 
Most  excellent  truth  may  be  so  spoken  as  to  be 
wrong ;  and  it  is  so,  if  spoken  heartlessly,  regardless  of 
sympathy,  and  flung  at  sufferers  like  a  stone,  rather 
than  laid  on  their  hearts  as  a  balm.  God  lets  a  true 
heart  dare  much  in  speech ;  for  He  knows  that  the 
sputter  and  foam  prove  that  *  the  heart's  deeps  boil 
in  earnest.' 

Job  is  put  in  the  place  of  intercessor  for  the  three — 
a  profound  humiliation  for  them  and  an  honour  for 
him.  They  obeyed  at  once,  showing  that  they  have 
learned  their  lesson,  as  well  as  Job  his.  An  incidental 
lesson  from  that  final  picture  of  the  sufferer  become 
the  priest  requiting  accusations  with  intercession,  is 
the  duty  of  cherishing  kind  feelings  and  doing  kind 
acts  to  those  who  say  hard  things  of  us.  It  would 
be  harder  for  some  of  us  to  offer  sacrifices  for  our 
Eliphazes  than  to  argue  with  them.    And  yet  another 


70  THE  BOOK  OF  JOB  [ch.xlii. 

is  that  sorrow  has  for  one  of  its  purposes  to  make  the 
heart  more  tender,  both  for  the  sorrows  and  the  faults 
of  others. 

Note,  too,  that  it  was  'when  Job  prayed  for  his 
friends  '  that  the  Lord  turned  his  captivity.  That  is  a 
proverbial  expression,  bearing  witness,  probably,  to  the 
deep  traces  left  by  the  Exodus,  for  reversing  calamity. 
The  turning-point  was  not  merely  the  confession,  but 
the  act,  of  beneficence.  So,  in  ministering  to  others, 
one's  own  griefs  may  be  soothed. 

The  restoration  of  outward  good  in  double  measure 
is  not  meant  as  the  statement  of  a  universal  law, of 
Providence,  and  still  less  as  a  solution  of  the  problem 
of  the  book.  But  it  is  putting  the  truth  that  sorrows, 
rightly  borne,  yield  peaceable  fruit  at  the  last,  in  the 
form  appropriate  to  the  stage  of  revelation  which  the 
whole  book  represents ;  that  is,  one  in  which  the 
doctrine  of  immortality,  though  it  sometimes  rises 
before  Job's  mind  as  an  aspiration  of  faith,  is  not 
set  in  full  light. 

To  us,  living  in  the  blaze  of  light  which  Jesus  Christ 
has  let  into  the  darkness  of  the  future,  the  '  end  of  the 
Lord '  is  that  heaven  should  crown  the  sorrows  of  His 
children  on  earth.  "We  can  speak  of  light,  transitory 
affliction  working  out  an  eternal  weight  of  glory.  The 
book  of  Job  is  expressing  substantially  the  same  ex- 
pectation, when  it  paints  the  calm  after  the  storm  and 
the  restoration  in  double  portion  of  vanished  blessings. 
Many  desolate  yet  trusting  sufferers  know  how  little 
such  an  issue  is  possible  for  their  grief,  but  if  they 
have  more  of  God  in  clearer  sight  of  Him,  they  will 
find  empty  places  in  their  hearts  and  homes  filled. 


THE    PROVERBS 


A   YOUNG  MAN'S   BEST   COUNSELLOR 

'  The  proverbs  of  Solomon  the  son  of  David,  king  of  Israel ;  2.  To  know  wisdom 
and  instruction ;  to  perceive  the  words  of  understanding ;  3.  To  receive  the 
instruction  of  wisdom,  justice,  and  judgment,  and  equity  ;  4.  To  give  subtilty  to 
the  simple,  to  the  young  man  knowledge  and  discretion,  5.  A  wise  man  will  hear, 
and  will  increase  learning  ;  and  a  man  of  understanding  shall  atta,in  unto  wise 
counsels  :  G.  To  understand  a  proverb,  and  the  interpretation  ;  the  words  of  the 
wise,  and  their  dark  sayings.  7.  The  fear  of  the  Lord  is  the  beginning  of  know- 
ledge :  but  fools  despise  wisdom  and  instruction.  8.  My  son,  hear  the  instruc- 
tion of  thy  father,  and  forsake  not  the  law  of  thy  mother  :  9.  For  they  sh.all  be  an 
ornament  of  grace  unto  thy  head,  and  chains  about  thy  neck.  10.  My  son,  if 
sinners  entice  thee,  consent  thou  not.  11.  If  they  say.  Come  with  us,  let  us  lay 
wait  for  blood,  let  us  lurk  privily  for  the  innocent  without  cause :  12.  Let  us 
swallow  them  up  alive  as  the  grave  ;  and  whole,  as  those  that  go  down  into  the 
pit :  13.  We  shall  find  all  precious  substance,  we  shall  All  our  houses  with  spoil : 
14.  Cast  in  thy  lot  among  us;  let  us  all  hive  one  purse:  15.  My  son,  walk  not 
thou  in  the  way  with  them;  refrain  thy  foot  from  their  path  :  16.  For  their  feet 
run  to  evil,  and  make  haste  to  shed  blood.  17.  (Surely  in  vain  the  net  is  spread  in 
the  sight  of  any  bird:)  18.  And  they  lay  wait  for  their  own  blood  ;  they  lurk  privily 
for  their  own  lives.  19.  So  are  the  ways  of  every  one  that  is  greedy  of  gain ;  which 
taketh  away  the  life  of  the  owners  thereof  .'—Prov.  i.  1-19. 

This  passage  contains  the  general  introduction  to  the 
book  of  Proverbs.  It  falls  into  three  parts — a  state- 
ment of  the  purpose  of  the  book  (vs.  1-6) ;  a  summary 
of  its  foundation  principles,  and  of  the  teachings  to 
which  men  ought  to  listen  (vs.  7-9) ;  and  an  antithetic 
statement  of  the  voices  to  which  they  should  be  deaf 
(vs.  10-19). 

I.  The  aim  of  the  book  is  stated  to  be  twofold — 
to  enable  men,  especially  the  young,  to  '  know  wisdom,' 
and  to  help  them  to  '  discern  the  words  of  understand- 
ing'; that  is,  to  familiarise,  by  the  study  of  the  book, 
with  the  characteristics  of  wise  teaching.s,  so  that  there 
may  be  no  mistaking  seducing  words  of  folly  for  these. 

71 


72  THE  PROVERBS  [ch.i. 

These  two  aims  are  expanded  in  the  remaining  verses, 
the  latter  of  them  being  resumed  in  verse  6,  while  the 
former  occupies  the  other  verses. 

We  note  how  emphatically  the  field  in  which  this 
wisdom  is  to  be  exercised  is  declared  to  be  the  moral 
conduct  of  life.  '  Righteousness  and  judgment  and 
equity '  are  '  wise  dealing,'  and  the  end  of  true  wisdom 
is  to  practise  these.  The  wider  horizon  of  modern 
science  and  speculation  includes  much  in  the  notion  of 
wisdom  which  has  no  bearing  on  conduct.  But  the 
intellectual  progress  (and  conceit)  of  to-day  will  be 
none  the  worse  for  the  reminder  that  a  man  may  take 
in  knowledge  till  he  is  ignorant,  and  that,  however 
enriched  with  science  and  philosophy,  if  he  does  not 
practise  righteousness,  he  is  a  fool. 

We  note  also  the  special  destination  of  the  book — 
for  the  young.  Youth,  by  reason  of  hot  blood  and 
inexperience,  needs  such  portable  medicines  as  are 
packed  in  these  proverbs,  many  of  them  the  condensa- 
tion into  a  vivid  sentence  of  world-wide  truths.  There 
are  few  better  guides  for  a  young  man  than  this  book 
of  homely  sagacity,  which  is  wisdom  about  the  world 
without  being  tainted  by  the  bad  sort  of  worldly 
wisdom.  But  unfortunately  those  who  need  it  most 
relish  it  least,  and  we  have  for  the  most  part  to  re- 
discover its  truths  for  ourselves  by  our  own,  often 
bitter,  experience. 

We  note,  further,  the  clear  statement  of  the  way 
by  which  incipient  'wisdom'  will  grow,  and  of  the 
certainty  of  its  growth  if  it  is  real.  It  is  the  'wise  man' 
who  will '  increase  in  learning,'  the  '  man  of  understand- 
ing' who  '  attains  unto  sound  counsels.'  The  treasures 
are  thrown  away  on  him  who  has  no  heart  for  them. 
You  may  lavish  wisdom  on  the  'fool,'  and  it  will  run  off 


vi.1-19]      THE  BEST  COUNSELLOR  78 

him    like  water  off  a   rock,  fertilising  nothing,  and 
stopping  outside  him. 

The  Bible  would  not  have  met  all  our  needs,  nor 
gone  with  us  into  all  regions  of  our  experience,  if  it 
had  not  had  this  book  of  shrewd,  practical  common- 
sense.  Christianity  is  the  perfection  of  common  sense. 
•Godliness  hath  promise  of  the  life  which  now^  is.' 
The  wisdom  of  the  serpent,  which  Jesus  enjoins,  has 
none  of  the  serpent's  venom  in  it.  It  is  no  sign  of 
spirituality  of  mind  to  be  above  such  mundane  con- 
siderations as  this  book  urges.  If  we  hold  our  heads 
too  high  to  look  to  our  road  and  our  feet,  we  are  sure 
to  fall  into  a  pit. 

II.  Verses  7-9  may  be  regarded  as  a  summary  state- 
ment of  the  principle  on  which  the  whole  book  is  based, 
and  of  the  duty  which  it  enjoins.  The  principle  is  that 
true  wisdom  is  based  on  religion,  and  the  duty  is  to 
listen  to  parental  instruction.  '  My  son,'  is  the  address" 
of  a  teacher  to  his  disciples,  rather  than  of  a  father  to 
his  child.  The  characteristic  Old  Testament  designa- 
tion of  religion  as  *  the  fear  of  Jehovah '  corresponds  to 
the  Old  Testament  revelation  of  Him  as  the  Holy  One, 
— that  is,  as  Him  who  is  infinitely  separated  from 
creatural  being  and  limitations.  Therefore  is  He  'to 
be  had  in  reverence  of  all '  who  would  be  '  about  Him '; 
that  fear  of  reverential  awe  in  which  no  slavish  dread 
mingles,  and  which  is  perfectly  consistent  with  aspira- 
tion, trust,  and  love.  The  Old  Testament  reveals  Him 
as  separate  from  men  ;  the  New  Testament  reveals  Him 
as  united  to  men  in  the  divine  man,  Christ  Jesua. 
Therefore  its  keynote  is  the  designation  of  religion  as 
'  the  love  of  God ';  but  that  name  is  no  contradiction  of 
the  earlier,  but  the  completion  of  it. 

That  fear  is  the  beginning  or  basis  of  wisdom,  because 


74  THE  PROVERBS  [ch.i. 

wisdom  is  conceived  of  as  God's  gift,  and  the  surest 
way  to  get  it  is  to  '  ask  of  God  '  ( Jas.  i.  5).  Religion  is, 
further,  the  foundation  of  wisdom,  inasmuch  as  irre- 
ligion  is  the  supreme  folly  of  creatures  so  dependent 
on  God,  and  so  hungering  after  Him  in  the  depths 
of  their  being,  as  we  are.  In  whatever  directions  a 
godless  man  may  be  wise,  in  the  most  important  matter 
of  all,  his  relations  to  God,  he  is  unwise,  and  the  epitaph 
for  all  such  is  '  Thou  fool ! ' 

Further,  religion  is  the  fountain  of  wisdom,  in  the 
sense  of  the  word  in  which  this  book  uses  it,  since 
it  opens  out  into  principles  of  action,  motives,  and 
communicated  powers,  which  lead  to  right  apprehen- 
sion and  willing  discharge  of  the  duties  of  life.  Godless 
men  may  be  scientists,  philosophers,  encyclopaedias  of 
knowledge,  but  for  want  of  religion,  they  blunder  in 
the  direction  of  their  lives,  and  lack  wisdom  enough  to 
keep  them  from  wrecking  the  ship  on  the  rocks. 

The  Israelitish  parent  was  enjoined  to  teach  his  or 
her  children  the  law  of  the  Lord.  Here  the  children 
are  enjoined  to  listen  to  the  instruction.  Reverence 
for  traditional  wisdom  was  characteristic  of  that  state 
of  society,  and  since  a  divine  revelation  stood  at  the 
beginning  of  the  nation's  history,  it  was  not  unreason- 
able to  look  back  for  light.  Nowadays,  a  belief's  being 
our  fathers'  is  with  many  a  reason  for  not  making  it 
ours.  But  perhaps  that  is  no  more  rational  than  the 
blind  adherence  to  the  old  with  which  this  emanci- 
pated generation  reproaches  its  predecessors.  Possibly 
there  are  some  '  old  lamps '  better  than  the  new  ones 
now  hawked  about  the  streets  by  so  many  loud-voiced 
vendors.  The  youth  of  this  day  have  much  need  of  the 
exhortation  to  listen  to  the  '  instruction '  (by  which  is 
meant,  not  only  teaching  by  word,  but  discipline  by 


vs.  1-19]     THE  BEST  COUNSELLOR  75 

act)  of  their  fathers,  and  to  the  gentler  voice  of  the 
mother  telling  of  law  in  accents  of  love.  These  pre- 
cepts obeyed  will  be  fairer  ornaments  than  jewelled 
necklaces  and  wreathed  chaplets. 

III.  On  one  side  of  the  young  man  are  those  who 
would  point  him  to  the  fear  of  Jehovah ;  on  the  other 
are  seducing  whispers,  tempting  him  to  sin.  That  is 
the  position  in  which  we  all  stand.  It  is  not  enough  to 
listen  to  the  nobler  voice.  We  have  resolutely  to  stop 
our  ears  to  the  baser,  which  is  often  the  louder.  Facile 
yielding  to  the  cunning  inducements  which  strew  every 
path,  and  especially  that  of  the  young,  is  fatal.  If  we 
cannot  say  '  No '  to  the  base,  we  shall  not  say  '  Yes '  to 
the  noble  voice.  To  be  weak  is  generally  to  be  wicked ; 
for  in  this  world  the  tempters  are  more  numerous,  and 
to  sense  and  flesh,  more  potent  than  those  who  invite 
to  good. 

The  example  selected  of  such  enticers  is  not  of  the 
kind  that  most  of  us  are  in  danger  from.  But  the  sort 
of  inducements  held  out  are  in  all  cases  substantially 
the  same.  '  Precious  substance '  of  one  sort  or  another 
is  dangled  before  dazzled  eyes ;  jovial  companionship 
draws  young  hearts.  The  right  or  wrong  of  the  thing 
is  not  mentioned,  and  even  murder  and  robbery  are  pre- 
sented as  rather  pleasant  excitement,  and  worth  doing 
for  the  sake  of  what  is  got  thereby.  Are  the  desirable 
consequences  so  sure?  Is  there  no  chance  of  being 
caught  red-handed,  and  stoned  then  and  there,  as  a 
murderer?  The  tempters  are  discreetly  silent  about 
that  possibility,  as  all  tempters  are.  Sin  always  de- 
ceives, and  its  baits  artfully  hide  the  hook;  but  the 
cruel  barb  is  there,  below  the  gay  silk  and  coloured 
dressing,  and  it — not  the  false  appearance  of  food  which 
lured  the  fish — is  what  sticks  in  the  bleeding  mouth. 


7«  THE  PROVERBS  [oh.i. 

The  teacher  goes  on,  in  rerses  15  to  19,  to  supply  the 
truth  which  the  tempters  tried  to  ignore.  He  does  so 
in  three  weighty  sentences,  which  strip  the  tinsel  off 
the  temptation,  and  show  its  real  ugliness.  The  flowery 
way  to  which  they  coax  is  a  way  of  *  evil ';  that  should 
be  enough  to  settle  the  question.  The  first  thing  to 
ask  about  any  course  is  not  whether  it  is  agreeable  or 
disagreeable,  but  Is  it  right  or  wrong?  Verse  17  is 
ambiguous,  but  probably  the  *  net '  means  the  tempters' 
speech  in  verses  11  to  14,  and  the  '  bird '  is  the  young 
man  supposed  to  be  addressed.  The  sense  will  then  be, 
'  Surely  you  are  not  foolish  enough  to  fly  right  into  the 
meshes,  and  to  go  with  your  eyes  open  into  so  trans- 
parent sin ! ' 

Verse  18  points  to  the  grim  possibility  already  re-- 
ferred  to,  that  the  would-be  murderers  will  be  caught 
and  executed.     But  its  lesson  is  wider  than  that  one 
case,  and  declares  the  great  solemn  truth  that  all  sin  is 
suicide.    Who  ever  breaks  God's  law  slays  himself. 

What  is  true  about '  covetousness,'  as  verse  19  tells, 
is  true  about  all  kinds  of  sin — that  it  takes  away  the 
life  of  those  who  yield  to  it,  even  though  it  may  also 
fill  their  purses,  or  in  other  ways  may  gratify  their 
desires.  Surely  it  is  folly  to  pursue  a  course  which, 
however  it  may  succeed  in  its  immediate  aims,  brings 
real  death,  by  separation  from  God,  along  with  it.  He 
is  not  a  very  wise  man  who  ties  his  gold  round  him 
when  the  ship  founders.  He  is  not  parted  from  his 
treasure  certainly,  but  it  helps  to  sink  him.  We  may 
get  what  we  want  by  sinning,  but  we  get  also  what  we 
did  not  want  or  reckon  on — that  is,  eternal  death. 
•This  their  way  is  their  folly.'  Yet,  strange  to  tell, 
their  posterity  '  approve  their  sayings,'  and  follow  their 
doings. 


WISDOM'S  CALL 

'Wisdom  crleth  without ;  she  uttereth  her  voice  In  the  streets :  21.  She  crieth  in 
the  chief  place  of  concourse,  in  the  openings  of  the  gates :  in  the  city  she  uttereth 
her  words,  saying,  22.  How  long,  ye  simple  ones,  will  ye  lore  simplicity?  and  the 
Boomers  delight  in  their  scorning,  and  fools  hate  knowledge?  23.  Turn  you  at  my 
reproof :  behold,  I  will  pour  out  my  Spirit  unto  you,  I  will  make  known  my  words 
unto  you.  24.  Because  I  have  called,  and  ye  refused;  I  have  stretched  out  my 
hand,  and  no  man  regarded ;  23.  But  ye  have  set  at  nought  all  my  counsel,  and 
would  none  of  my  reproof :  26.  I  also  will  laugh  at  your  calamity ;  I  will  mock 
when  your  fear  cometh ;  27.  When  your  fear  cometh  as  desolation,  and  your 
destruction  cometh  as  a  whirlwind ;  when  distress  and  anguish  cometh  upon  yon. 
28.  Then  shall  they  call  upon  me,  bui  I  will  not  answer;  they  shall  seek  me  early, 
but  they  shall  not  find  me :  29.  For  that  they  hated  knowledge,  and  did  not  choose 
the  fear  of  the  Lord :  30.  They  would  none  of  my  counsel ;  they  despised  all  my 
reproof.  31.  Therefore  shall  they  eat  of  the  fruit  of  their  own  way,  and  be  filled 
with  their  own  devices.  32.  For  the  turning  away  of  the  simple  shall  slay  them, 
and  the  prosperity  of  fools  shall  destroy  them.  33.  But  whoso  hearkeneth  unto 
me  shall  dwell  safely,  and  shall  be  quiet  from  fear  of  evil.'— Proverbs  i.  20-33. 

Our  passage  begins  with  a  striking  picture.  A  fair 
and  queenly  woman  stands  in  the  crowded  resorts  of 
men,  and  lifts  up  a  voice  of  sweet  entreaty — authorita- 
tive as  well  as  sweet.  Her  name  is  Wisdom.  The  word 
is  in  the  plural  in  the  Hebrew,  as  if  to  teach  that  in  this 
serene  and  lovely  form  all  manifold  wisdoms  are 
gathered  and  made  one.  Who  then  is  she  ?  It  is  easy 
to  say  '  a  poetical  personification,'  but  that  does  not  add 
miuch  to  our  understanding.  It  is  clear  that  this  book 
means  much  more  by  Wisdom  than  a  human  quality 
merely ;  for  august  and  divine  attributes  are  given  to 
her,  and  she  is  the  co-eternal  associate  of  God  Himself. 
Dwelling  in  His  bosom,  she  thence  comes  forth  to 
inspire  all  human  good  deeds,  to  plead  evermore  with 
men,  to  enrich  those  who  listen  to  her  with  choicest 
gifts.  Intellectual  clearness,  moral  goodness,  religious 
devotion,  are  all  combined  in  the  idea  of  Wisdom  as 
belonging  to  men. 

The  divine  source  of  all,  and  the  correspondence 
between  the  human  and  the  divine  nature,  are  taught 
in  the  residence  of  this  personified  Wisdom  with  God 

77 


78  THE  PROVERBS  [ch.i. 

before  she  dwelt  with  men.  The  whole  of  the  manifold 
revelations,  by  which  God  makes  known  any  part  of 
His  will  to  men,  are  her  voice.  Especially  the  call 
contained  in  the  Old  Testament  revelation  is  the 
summons  of  Wisdom.  But  whether  the  writer  of  this 
book  had  any  inkling  of  deeper  truth  still,  or  not,  we 
cannot  but  connect  the  incomplete  personification  of 
divine  Wisdom  here  with  its  complete  incarnation  in  a 
Person  who  is  'the  power  of  God  and  the  wisdom  of 
God,'  and  who  embodies  the  lineaments  of  the  grand 
picture  of  a  Wisdom  crying  in  the  streets,  even  while  it 
is  true  of  Him  that  'He  does  not  strive  nor  cry,  nor 
cause  His  voice  to  be  heard  in  the  streets ' ;  for  the 
crying,  which  is  denied  to  be  His,  is  ostentatious  and 
noisy,  and  the  crying  which  is  asserted  to  be  hers  is  the 
plain,  clear,  universal  appeal  of  divine  love  as  well  as 
wisdom.  The  light  of  Christ '  lighteth  every  man  that 
Cometh  into  the  world.' 

The  call  of  Wisdom  in  this  passage  begins  with 
remonstrance  and  plain  speech,  giving  their  right 
names  to  men  who  neglect  her  voice.  The  first  step  in 
delivering  men  from  evil — that  is,  from  foolish — courses 
is  to  put  very  clearly  before  them  the  true  character 
of  their  acts,  and  still  more  of  their  inclinations. 
Gracious  offers  and  rich  promises  come  after ;  but  the 
initial  message  of  Wisdom  to  such  men  as  we  are  must 
be  the  accusation  of  folly.  'When  she  is  come,  she 
will  convict  the  world  of  sin.' 

The  three  designations  of  men  in  verse  22  are  probably 
arranged  so  as  to  make  a  climax.  First  come  '  the 
simple,'  or,  as  the  word  means,  *  open.'  There  is  a 
sancta  simpUcitas,  a  holy  ignorance  of  evil,  which  is 
sister  to  the  highest  wisdom.  It  is  well  to  be  ignorant 
as  well  as  •  innocent  of  much  transgression ' ;  and  there 


vs.  20-33]  WISDOM'S  CALL  79 

is  no  more  mistaken  and  usually  insincere  excuse  for 
going  into  foul  places  than  the  plea  that  it  is  best  to 
know  the  evil  and  so  choose  the  good.  That  knowledge 
comes  surely  and  soon  enough  without  our  seeking  it. 
But  there  is  a  fatal  simplicity,  open-eared,  like  Eve,  to 
the  Tempter's  whisper,  which  believes  the  false  pro- 
mises of  sin,  and  as  Bunyan  has  taught  us,  is  companion 
of  sloth  and  presumption. 

Next  come  'scorners,'  who  mock  at  good.  A  man 
must  have  gone  a  long  way  down  hill  before  he  begins 
to  gibe  at  virtue  and  godliness.  But  the  descent  is 
steep,  though  the  distance  is  long;  and  the  'simple' 
who  begins  to  do  what  is  wrong  will  come  to  sneer  at 
what  is  right. 

Then  last  comes  the  '  fool,'  the  name  which,  in  Pro- 
verbs, is  shorthand  for  mental  stupidity,  moral  obstin- 
acy, and  dogged  godlessness, — a  foul  compound,'but  one 
which  io  realised  of  tener  than  we  think.  A  great  many 
very  superior  intellects,  cultivated  ladies  and  gentlemen, 
university  graduates,  and  the  like,  would  be  uncere- 
moniously set  down  by  divine  wisdom  as  fools ;  and 
surely  if  account  is  taken  of  the  whole  compass  and 
duration  of  our  being,  and  of  all  our  relations  to  things 
and  persons  seen  and  unseen,  nothing  can  be  more 
stupid  than  godlessness,  however  cultured.  The  word 
literally  means  coarse  or  thick,  and  may  suggest  the 
idea  of  stolid  insensibility  as  the  last  stage  in  the  down- 
ward progress. 

But  note  that  the  charge  is  directed,  not  against 
deeds,  but  dispositions.  Perverted  love  and  perverted 
hatred  underlie  acts.  The  simple  love  simplicity,  pre- 
ferring to  be  unwarned  against  evil ;  the  scorner  finds 
delight  in  letting  his  rank  tongue  blossom  into  speech  ; 
and  the  false  direction  given  to  love  gives  a  fatal 


80  THE  PROVERBS  [ch.i, 

twist  to  its  corresponding  hate,  so  that  the  fool  detests 
'knowledge'  as  a  thief  the  policeman's  lantern.  You 
cannot  love  what  you  should  loathe,  without  loathing 
what  you  should  love.  Inner  longings  and  revulsions 
settle  character  and  acts. 

Verse  23  passes  into  entreaty ;  for  it  is  vain  to  rouse 
conscience  by  plain  speech,  unless  something  is  offered 
to  make  better  life  possible.  The  divine  Wisdom  comes 
with  a  rod,  but  also  with  gifts  ;  but  if  the  rod  is  kissed, 
the  rewards  are  possessed.  The  relation  of  clauses  in 
verse  23  is  that  the  first  is  the  condition  of  the  fulfil- 
ment of  the  second  and  third.  If  we  turn  at  her 
reproof,  two  great  gifts  will  be  bestowed.  Her  spirit 
within  will  make  us  quick  to  hear  and  receive  her 
words  sounding  without.  Whatever  other  good  follows 
on  yielding  to  the  call  of  divine  Wisdom  (and  the 
remaining  early  chapters  of  Proverbs  magnificently 
detail  the  many  rich  gifts  that  do  follow),  chief  of  all 
are  spirits  swift  to  hear  and  docile  to  obey  her  voice, 
and  then  actual  communications  to  purged  ears. 
Outward  revelation  without  prepared  hearts  is  water 
spilt  upon  rock.  Prepared  hearts  without  a  message  to 
them  would  be  but  multiplication  of  vain  longings; 
and  God  never  stultifies  Himself,  or  gives  mouths  with- 
out sending  meat  to  fill  them.  To  the  submissive  spirit, 
tliere  will  not  lack  either  disposition  to  hear  or  clear 
utterance  of  His  will. 

But  now  comes  a  pause.  Wisdom  has  made  her 
offers  in  the  crowded  streets,  and  amid  all  the  noise 
and  bustle  her  voice  has  rung  out.  What  is  the  result? 
Nothing.  Not  a  head  has  been  turned,  nor  an  eye 
lifted.  The  bustle  goes  on  as  before.  'They  bought, 
they  sold,'  as  if  no  voice  had  spoken.  So,  after  the  dis- 
appointed waiting  of  Wisdom,  her  voice  peals  out  again, 


vs. 20-33]  WISDOM'S  CALL  81 

but  this  time  with  severity  in  its  tones.  Note  how,  in 
verses  24  and  25,  the  sin  of  sins  against  the  pleading 
Wisdom  of  God  is  represented  as  being  simple  indif- 
ference. '  Ye  refused,'  '  no  man  regarded,'  '  set  at 
nought,'  'would  none  of — these  are  the  things  which 
bring  down  the  heavy  judgments.  It  does  not  need 
violent  opposition  or  black  crime  to  wreck  a  soul. 
Simply  doing  nothing  when  God  speaks  is  enough  to 
effect  destruction.  There  is  no  need  to  lift  up  angry 
arms  in  hostility.  If  we  keep  them  hanging  listless  by 
our  sides,  it  is  sufficient.  The  gift  escapes  us,  if  we 
simply  keep  our  hands  shut  or  held  behind  our  backs. 
Alas,  for  ears  which  have  not  heard,  for  seeing  eyes 
which  have  not  seen  because  they  loved  evil  simplicity 
and  hated  knowledge ! 

Then  note  the  terrible  retribution.  That  is  an  awful 
picture  of  the  mocking  laughter  of  Wisdom,  accompany- 
ing the  rush  of  the  whirlwind  and  the  groans  of 
anguish  and  shrieks  of  terror.  It  is  even  more  solemn 
and  dreadful  than  the  parallel  representations  in 
Psalm  ii.,  for  there  the  laughter  indicates  God's  know- 
ledge that  the  schemes  of  opponents  are  vain,  but  here 
it  figures  pleasure  in  calamities.  Of  course  it  is  to  be 
remembered  that  the  Wisdom  thus  represented  is  not 
to  be  identified  with  God;  but  still  the  imagery  is 
startling,  and  needs  to  be  taken  along  with  declarations 
that  God  has  '  no  pleasure  in  the  death  of  the  sinner,' 
and  to  be  interpreted  as  indicating,  with  daring 
anthropomorphism,  the  inevitable  character  of  the 
*  destruction,'  and  the  uselessness  of  appeals  to  the 
Wisdom  once  despised.  But  we  joyfully  remember  that 
the  Incarnate  Wisdom,  fairer  than  the  ancient  personi- 
fication, wept  over  the  city  which  He  knew  must  perish. 

Verses  28-31  carry  on  the  picture  of  too  late  repentance 

p 


82  THE  PROVERBS  [ch.i. 

and  inevitable  retribution.  They  who  let  Wisdom  cry, 
and  paid  no  heed,  shall  cry  to  her  in  their  turn,  and  be 
unnoticed.  They  whom  she  vainly  sought  shall  vainly 
seek  for  her.  Actions  have  their  consequences,  which 
are  not  annihilated  because  the  doers  do  not  like  them. 
Thoughts  have  theirs;  for  the  foolish  not  only  eat  of 
the  fruit  of  their  ways  or  doings,  but  are  filled  with 
their  own  devices  or  counsels.  'Whatsoever  a  man 
soweth,  that  shall  he  also  reap.'  That  inexorable  law 
works,  deaf  to  all  cries,  in  the  field  of  earthly  life,  both 
as  regards  condition  and  character ;  and  that  field  of  its 
operation  is  all  that  the  writer  of  this  book  has  in 
view.  He  is  not  denying  the  possibility  of  forgiveness, 
nor  the  efficacy  of  repentance,  nor  is  he  asserting  that 
a  penitent  soul  ever  seeks  God  in  vain  ;  but  he  is 
declaring  that  it  is  too  late  to  cry  out  for  deliverance 
from  consequences  of  folly  when  the  consequences  have 
us  in  their  grip,  and  that  wishes  for  deliverance  are 
vain,  though  sighs  of  repentance  are  not.  We  cannot 
reap  where  we  have  not  sowed.  We  must  reap  what 
we  have.  If  we  are  such  sluggards  that  we  will  'not 
plough  in  winter  by  reason  of  the  cold,'  we  shall '  beg  in 
harvest  and  have  nothing.' 

But  though  the  writer  had  probably  only  this  life  in 
view,  Jesus  Christ  has  extended  the  teaching  to  the 
next,  when  He  has  told  of  those  who  will  seek  to  enter 
in  and  not  be  able.  The  experience  of  the  fruits  of  their 
godlessness  will  make  godless  men  wish  to  escape  eating 
the  fruits — and  that  wish  shall  be  vain.  It  is  not  for 
us  to  enlarge  on  such  words,  but  it  is  for  us  all  to  lay 
them  to  heart,  and  to  take  heed  that  we  listen  now  to 
the  beseeching  call  of  the  heavenly  Wisdom  in  its 
tenderest  and  noblest  form,  as  it  appeared  in  Christ, 
the  Incarnate  Word. 


vs.  20-33]  WISDOM'S  CALL  83 

Verses  32  and  33  generalise  the  preceding  promises 
and  warnings  in  a  great  antithesis.  'The  backshding 
[or,  turning  away]  of  the  simple  slays  them.'  There  is 
allusion  to  Wisdom's  call  in  verse  23.  The  simple  had 
turned,  but  in  the  wrong  direction — away  from  and 
not  towards  her.  To  turn  away  from  heavenly  Wisdom 
is  to  set  one's  face  toward  destruction.  It  cannot  be 
too  earnestly  reiterated  that  we  must  make  our  choice 
of  one  of  two  directions  for  ourselves — either  towards 
God,  to  seek  whom  is  life,  to  find  whom  is  heaven ;  or 
away  from  Him,  to  turn  our  backs  on  whom  is  to 
embrace  unrest,  and  to  be  separate  from  whom  is 
death.  '  The  security  of  fools,'  by  which  is  meant,  not 
their  safety,  but  their  fancy  that  they  are  safe, '  destroys 
them.'  No  man  is  in  such  danger  as  the  careless  man 
of  the  world  who  thinks  that  he  is  all  right.  A  traveller 
along  the  edge  of  a  precipice  in  the  night,  who  goes  on 
as  if  he  walked  a  broad  road  and  takes  no  heed  to  his 
footing,  will  soon  repent  his  rashness  at  the  bottom, 
mangled  and  bruised.  A  man  who  in  this  changing 
world  fancies  that  he  sits  as  a  king,  and  sees  no  sorrow, 
will  have  a  rude  wakening.  A  moment's  heed  saves 
hours  of  pain. 

The  alternative  to  this  suicidal  folly  is  in  listening  to 
Wisdom's  call.  Whoever  does  that  will '  dwell  safely,' 
not  in  fancied  but  real  security ;  and  in  his  quiet  heart 
there  need  be  no  unrest  from  feared  evils,  for  he  will 
have  hold  of  a  charm  which  turns  evils  into  good,  and 
with  such  a  guide  he  cannot  go  astray,  nor  with  such  a 
defender  be  wounded  to  death,  nor  with  such  a  com- 
panion ever  be  solitary.  If  Christ  be  our  Light,  we 
shall  not  walk  in  darkness.  If  He  be  our  Wisdom,  we 
shall  not  err.  If  He  be  our  Life,  we  shall  never  see 
death.    If  He  is  our  Good,  we  shall  fear  no  evil. 


THE  SECRET  OF  WELL-BEING 

*  My  son,  forget  not  my  law ;  but  let  thine  heart  keep  my  commandmenta : 
2.  For  length  of  days,  and  long  life,  and  peace,  shall  they  add  to  thee.  3.  Let  not 
mercy  and  truth  forsake  thee  :  bind  them  about  thy  neck  ;  write  them  upon  the 
table  of  thine  heart:  4.  So  shalt  thou  find  favour  and  good  understanding  in  the 
sight  of  God  and  man.  5.  Trust  in  the  Lord  with  all  thine  heart ;  and  lean  not  unto 
thine  own  understanding.  6.  In  all  thy  ways  acknowledge  Him,  and  He  shall 
direct  thy  paths.  7.  Be  not  wise  in  thine  own  eyes :  fear  the  Lord,  and  depart 
from  evil.  8.  It  shall  be  health  to  thy  navel,  and  marrow  to  thy  bones.  9.  Honour 
the  Lord  with  thy  substance,  and  with  the  flrstfruits  of  all  thine  increase  :  10.  So 
shall  thy  barns  be  filled  with  plenty,  and  thy  presses  shall  burst  out  with  new  wine.' 
—Proverbs  iii.  1-10. 

The  first  ten  verses  of  this  passage  form  a  series  of  five 
couplets,  which  enforce  on  the  young  various  phases 
of  goodness  by  their  tendency  to  secure  happiness  or 
blessedness  of  various  sorts.  The  underlying  axiom  is 
that,  in  a  world  ruled  by  a  good  Being,  obedience  must 
lead  to  well-being;  but  while  that  is  in  the  general 
true,  exceptions  do  occur,  and  good  men  do  encounter 
evil  times.  Therefore  the  glowing  promises  of  these 
verses  are  followed  by  two  verses  which  deal  with  the 
explanation  of  good  men's  afflictions,  as  being  results 
and  tokens  of  God's  fatherly  love. 

The  first  couplet  is  general  in  character.  It  incul- 
cates obedience  to  the  precepts  of  the  teacher,  and 
gives  as  reason  the  assurance  that  thereby  long  life 
and  peace  will  be  secured.  True  to  the  Old  Testament 
conception  of  revelation  as  a  law,  the  teacher  sets 
obedience  in  the  forefront.  He  is  sure  that  his  teaching 
contains  the  sufficient  guide  for  conduct,  and  coincides 
with  the  divine  will.  He  calls,  in  the  first  instance,  for 
inward  willing  acceptance  of  His  commandments ;  for 
it  is  the  heart,  not  primarily  the  hands,  which  he  desire^ 
should  '  keep '  them.  The  mother  of  all  graces  of  con- 
duct is  the  bowing  of  the  w^ill  to  divine  authority.  The 
will  is  the  man,  and  where  it  ceases  to  lift  itself  up  in 
self-sacrificing  and  self-determining  rebellion,  and  dis- 

M 


vs.  1-10]    THE  SECRET  OF  WELL-BEING     85 

solves  into  running  waters  of  submission,  these  will 
flow  through  the  life  and  make  it  pure.  To  obey  self 
is  sin,  to  obey  God  is  righteousness.  The  issues  of  such 
obedience  are  '  length  of  days  .  .  .  and  peace.' 

Even  if  we  allow  for  the  difference  between  the  Old 
and  the  New  Testaments,  it  remains  true  that  a  life 
conformed  to  God's  will  tends  to  longevity,  and  that 
many  forms  of  sin  do  shorten  men's  days.  Passion 
and  indulged  appetites  eat  away  the  very  flesh,  and 
many  a  man's  '  bones  are  full  of  the  sin  of  his  youth.' 
The  profligate  has  usually  'a  short  life,'  whether  he 
succeeds  in  making  it '  merry '  or  not. 

*  Peace '  is  a  wide  word,  including  all  well-being.  Ease- 
loving  Orientals,  especially  when  living  in  warlike  times, 
naturally  used  the  phrase  as  a  shorthand  expression 
for  all  good.  Busy  Westerns,  torn  by  the  distractions 
and  rapid  movement  of  modern  life,  echo  the  sigh  for 
repose  which  breathes  in  the  word.  '  There  is  no  joy 
but  calm,'  and  the  sure  way  to  deepest  peace  is  to  give 
up  self-will  and  live  in  obedience. 

The  second  couplet  deals  with  our  relations  to  one 
another,  and  puts  forward  the  two  virtues  of  '  loving- 
kindness  and  truth  ' — that  is  truth,  or  faithfulness — as 
all-inclusive.  They  are  the  two  which  are  often  jointly 
ascribed  to  God,  especially  in  the  Psalms.  Our  attitude 
to  one  another  should  be  moulded  in  God's  to  us  all. 
The  tiniest  crystal  has  the  same  facets  and  angles  as 
the  largest.  The  giant  hexagonal  pillars  of  basalt,  like 
our  Scottish  Staffa,  are  identical  in  form  with  the 
microscopic  crystals  of  the  same  substance.  God  is 
our  Pattern ;  goodness  is  likeness  to  Him. 

These  graces  are  to  be  bound  about  the  neck,  perhaps 
as  an  ornament,  but  more  probably  as  a  yoke  by  which 
the  harnessed  ox  draws  its  burden.    If  we  have  them, 


86  THE  PROVERBS  [cH.ni. 

they  will  fit  us  to  bear  one  another's  burdens,  and  ■will 
lead  to  all  human  duties  to  our  fellows. 

These  graces  are  also  to  be  written  on  the  'table 
of  the  heart';  that  is,  are  to  be  objects  of  habitual 
meditation  with  aspiration.  If  so,  they  will  come  to 
sight  in  life.  He  who  practises  them  will  '  find  favour 
with  God  and  man,'  for  God  looks  with  complacency 
on  those  who  display  the  right  attitude  to  men ;  and 
men  for  the  most  part  treat  us  as  we  treat  them. 
There  are  surly  natures  which  are  not  won  by  kindness, 
like  black  tarns  among  the  hills,  that  are  gloomy  even 
in  sunshine,  and  requite  evil  for  good ;  but  the  most 
of  men  reflect  our  feelings  to  them. 

'Good  understanding'  is  another  result.  It  is 
'  found '  when  it  is  attributed  to  us,  so  that  the  expres- 
sion substantially  means  that  the  possessors  of  these 
graces  will  win  the  reputation  of  being  really  wise,  not 
only  in  the  fallible  judgment  of  men,  but  before  the 
pure  eyes  of  the  all-seeing  God.  Really  wise  policy 
coincides  with  loving-kindness  and  truth. 

The  remaining  couplets  refer  to  our  relations  to  God. 
The  New  Testament  is  significantly  anticipated  in  the 
pre-eminence  given  to  trust;  that  is,  faith.  Nor  less 
significant  and  profound  is  the  association  of  self- 
distrust  with  trust  in  the  Lord.  The  two  things  are 
inseparable.  They  are  but  the  under  and  upper  sides 
of  one  thing,  or  like  the  two  growths  that  come  from 
a  seed — one  striking  downwards  becomes  the  root; 
one  piercing  upwards  becomes  the  stalk.  The  double 
attitude  of  trust  and  distrust  finds  expression  in 
acknowledging  Him  in  all  our  ways ;  that  is,  ordering 
our  conduct  under  a  constant  consciousness  of  His 
presence,  in  accordance  with  His  will,  and  in  depend- 
ence on  His  help. 


vs.  1-10]    THE  SECRET  OF  WELL-BEING     87 

Such  a  relation  to  God  will  certainly,  and  with  no 
exceptions,  issue  in  His  'directing  our  paths,'  by  which 
is  meant  that  He  will  be  not  only  our  Guide,  but  also 
our  Roadmaker,  showing  us  the  way  and  clearing 
obstacles  from  it.  Calm  certitude  follows  on  willing- 
ness to  accept  God's  will,  and  whoever  seeks  only  to  go 
where  God  sends  him  will  neither  be  left  doubtful 
whither  he  should  go,  nor  find  his  road  blocked. 

The  fourth  couplet  is,  in  its  first  part,  in  inverted 
parallelism  with  the  third ;  for  it  begins  with  self- 
distrust,  and  proceeds  thence  to  'fear  of  the  Lord,* 
which  corresponds  to,  and  is,  in  fact,  but  one  phase  of, 
trust  in  Him.  It  is  the  reverent  aw^e  which  has  no 
torment,  and  is  then  purest  when  faith  is  strongest. 
It  necessarily  leads  to  departing  from  evil.  Morality 
has  its  roots  in  religion.  There  is  no  such  magnet  to 
draw  men  from  sin  as  the  happy  fear  of  God,  which  is 
likewise  faith.  Whoever  separates  devoutness  from 
purity  of  life,  this  teacher  does  not.  He  knows  nothing 
of  religion  which  permits  association  with  iniquity- 
Such  conduct  will  tend  to  physical  well-being,  and  in  a 
deeper  sense  will  secure  soundness  of  life.  Godlessness 
is  the  true  sickness.  He  only  is  healthy  who  has  a 
healthy,  because  healed,  soul. 

The  fifth  couplet  appears  at  first  as  being  a  drop  to  a 
lower  region.  A  regulation  of  the  Mosaic  law  may 
strike  some  as  out  of  place  here.  But  it  is  to  be 
remembered  that  our  modern  distinction  of  ceremonial 
and  moral  law  was  non-existent  for  Israel,  and  that 
the  command  has  a  wider  application  than  to  Jewish 
tithes.  To  'honour  God  with  our  substance'  is  not 
necessarily  to  give  it  away  for  religious  purposes,  but 
to  use  it  devoutly  and  as  He  approves. 

Christianity  has  more  to  say  about  the  distributioij, 


88  THE  PROVERBS  [oh.  hi. 

as  well  as  the  acquisition,  of  wealth,  than  professing 
Christians,  especially  in  commercial  communities,  prac- 
tically recognise.  This  precept  grips  us  tight,  and  is 
much  more  than  a  ceremonial  regulation.  Many  causes 
besides  the  devout  use  of  property  tend  to  wealth  in 
our  highly  artificial  state  of  society.  The  world  tries 
to  get  it  by  shrewdness,  unscrupulousness,  and  by 
many  other  vices  which  are  elevated  to  the  rank  of 
virtues ;  but  he  who  honours  the  Lord  in  getting  and 
spending  will  generally  have  as  much  as  his  true  needs 
and  regulated  desires  require. 


THE  GIFTS  OF  HEAVENLY  WISDOM 

'My  son,  despise  not  the  chastening  of  the  Lord;  neither  be  weary  of  His  cor- 
rection :  12.  For  whom  the  Lord  loveth  He  correcteth ;  even  as  a  father  the  son 
in  whom  he  delighteth.  13.  Happy  is  the  man  that  flndeth  wisdom,  and  the  man 
that  getteth  understanding.  14.  For  the  merchandise  of  it  is  better  than  the 
merchandise  of  silver,  and  the  gain  thereof  than  fine  gold.  15.  She  is  more  precious 
than  rubies :  and  all  the  things  thou  canst  desire  are  not  to  be  compared  unto  her. 

16.  Length  of  days  is  in  her  right  hand ;  and  in  her  left  hand  i-iches  and  honour. 

17.  Her  ways  are  ways  of  pleasantness,  and  all  her  paths  are  peace.  18.  She  is  a 
tree  of  life  to  them  that  lay  hold  upon  her :  and  happy  is  every  one  that  retaineth 
her.  19.  The  Lord  by  wisdom  hath  founded  the  earth ;  by  understanding  hath  He 
established  the  heavens.  20.  By  His  knowledge  the  depths  are  broken  up,  and  the 
clouds  drop  down  the  dew.  21.  My  son,  let  not  them  depart  from  thine  eyes :  keep 
sound  wisdom  and  discretion :  22.  So  shall  they  be  life  unto  thy  soul,  and  grace 
to  thy  neck.  23.  Then  shalt  thou  walk  in  thy  way  safely,  and  thy  foot  shall  not 
stumble.  24.  When  thou  liest  down,  thou  shalt  not  be  afraid :  yea,  thou  shalt  lie 
down,  and  thy  sleep  shall  be  sweet.'— Proverbs  iii.  11-24. 

The  repetition  of  the  words  '  my  son '  at  the  beginning 
of  this  passage  marks  a  new  section,  which  extends  to 
verse  20,  inclusively,  another  section  being  similarly 
marked  as  commencing  in  verse  21.  The  fatherly 
counsels  of  these  early  chapters  are  largely  reiterations 
of  the  same  ideas,  being  line  upon  line.  '  To  write  the 
same  things  to  you,  to  me  indeed  is  not  grievous,  but 
for  you  it  is  safe.'  Many  strokes  drive  the  nail  home. 
Exhortations  to  get  Wisdom,  based  upon  the  blessings 
she  brings,  are  the  staple  of  the  whole.     If  we  look 


vs.11-24]  GIFTS  OF  HEAVENLY  WISDOM  89 

carefully  at  the  section  (vers.  11-20),  we  find  in  it  a 
central  core  (vers.  13-18),  setting  forth  the  blessings 
which  Wisdom  gives,  preceded  by  two  verses,  incul- 
cating the  right  acceptance  of  God's  chastisements 
which  are  one  chief  means  of  attaining  Wisdom,  and 
followed  by  two  verses  (vers.  19,  20),  which  exalt  her  as 
being  divine  as  well  as  human.  So  the  portraiture  of 
her  working  in  humanity  is  framed  by  a  prologue  and 
epilogue,  setting  forth  two  aspects  of  her  relation  to 
God;  namely,  that  she  is  imparted  by  Him  through 
the  discipline  of  trouble,  and  that  she  dwells  in  His 
bosom  and  is  the  agent  of  His  creative  work. 

The  prologue,  then,  points  to  sorrow  and  trouble, 
rightly  accepted,  as  one  chief  means  by  which  we 
acquire  heavenly  Wisdom.  Note  the  profound  insight 
into  the  meaning  of  sorrows.  They  are  -instruction' 
and  '  reproof.'  The  thought  of  the  Book  of  Job  is  here 
fully  incorporated  and  assimilated.  Griefs  and  pains 
are  not  tokens  of  anger,  nor  punishments  of  sin,  but 
love-gifts  meant  to  help  to  the  acquisition  of  wisdom. 
They  do  not  come  because  the  sufferers  are  wicked, 
but  in  order  to  make  them  good  or  better.  Tempests 
are  meant  to  blow  us  into  port.  The  lights  are  lowered 
in  the  theatre  that  fairer  scenes  may  become  visible  on 
the  thin  screen  between  us  and  eternity.  Other  sup- 
ports are  struck  away  that  we  may  lean  hard  on  God. 
The  voice  of  all  experience  of  earthly  loss  and  bitter- 
ness is,  'Wisdom  is  the  principal  thing;  therefore  get 
Wisdom.'  God  himself  becomes  our  Schoolmaster,  and 
through  the  voice  of  the  human  teacher  we  hear 
His  deeper  tones  saying,  'My  son,  despise  not  the 
chastening.' 

Note,  too,  the  assurance  that  all  discipline  is  the  fruit 
of  Fatherly  love.     How  many  sad  hearts  in  all  ages 


90  THE  PROVERBS  [ch.  iii. 

these  few  words  have  calmed  and  braced !  How  sharp 
a  test  of  our  childlike  spirit  our  acceptance  of  them, 
when  our  own  hearts  are  sore,  is !  How  deep  the  peace 
which  they  bring  when  really  believed !  How  far  they 
go  to  solve  the  mystery  of  pain,  and  turn  darkness  into 
a  solemn  light ! 

Note,  further,  that  the  words  'despise'  and  'be 
weary '  both  imply  rather  rejection  with  loathing,  and 
thus  express  unsubmissive  impatience  which  gets  no 
good  from  discipline.  The  beautiful  rendering  of  the 
Septuagint,  which  has  been  made  familiar  by  its  adop- 
tion in  Hebrews,  makes  the  two  words  express  two 
opposite  faults.  They  'despise'  who  steel  their  wills 
against  the  rod,  and  make  as  if  they  did  not  feel  the 
pain;  they  'faint'  who  collapse  beneath  the  blows, 
which  they  feel  so  much  that  they  lose  sight  of  their 
purpose.  Dogged  insensibility  and  utter  prostration 
are  equally  harmful.  He  who  meets  life's  teachings, 
which  are  a  Father's  correction,  with  either,  has  little 
prospect  of  getting  Wisdom. 

Then  follows  the  main  part  of  this  section  (vers.  13-18), 
— the  praise  of  Wisdom  as  in  herself  most  precious, 
and  as  bestowing  highest  good.  '  The  man  that  findeth 
Wisdom '  reminds  us  of  the  peasant  in  Christ's  parable, 
who  found  treasure  hidden  in  a  field,  and  the  'mer- 
chandise' in  verse  14,  of  the  trader  seeking  goodly 
pearls.  But  the  finding  in  verse  13  is  not  like  the 
rustic's  in  the  parable,  who  was  seeking  nothing  when 
a  chance  stroke  of  his  plough  or  kick  of  his  heel 
laid  bare  the  glittering  gold.  It  is  the  finding  which 
rewards  seeking.  The  figure  of  acquiring  by  trading, 
like  that  of  the  pearl-merchant  in  the  companion 
parable,  implies  pains,  effort,  willingness  to  part  with 
something  in  order  to  attain. 


vs.11-24]  GIFTS  OF  HEAVENLY  WISDOM  91 

The  nature  of  the  price  is  not  here  in  question.  We 
know  who  has  said,  '  I  counsel  thee  to  buy  of  Me  gold 
tried  in  the  fire.'  We  buy  heavenly  Wisdom  when  w^e 
surrender  ourselves.  The  price  is  desire  to  possess,  and 
willingness  to  accept  as  an  undeserved,  unearned  gift. 
But  that  does  not  come  into  view  in  our  lesson.  Only 
this  is  strongly  put  in  it — that  this  heavenly  Wisdom 
outshines  all  jewels,  outweighs  all  wealth,  and  is  indeed 
the  only  true  riches.  '  Rubies '  is  probably  rather  to  be 
taken  as  '  corals,'  which  seem  to  have  been  very  highly 
prized  by  the  Jews,  and,  no  doubt,  found  their  way  to 
them  from  the  Indian  Ocean  viA  the  Red  Sea.  The 
word  rendered  'things  thou  canst  desire'  is  better  taken 
as  meaning  *  jewels.' 

This  noble  and  conclusive  depreciation  of  material 
wealth  in  comparison  with  Wisdom,  which  is  not  merely 
intellectual,  but  rests  on  the  fear  of  the  Lord,  and  is 
goodness  as  well  as  understanding,  never  needed  preach- 
ing with  more  emphasis  than  in  our  day,  when  more 
and  more  the  commercial  spirit  invades  every  region 
of  life,  and  rich  men  are  the  aristocrats  and  envied 
types  of  success.  When  will  England  and  America 
believe  the  religion  which  they  profess,  and  adjust 
their  estimates  of  the  best  things  accordingly?  How 
many  so-called  Christian  parents  would  think  their  son 
mad  if  he  said,  '  I  do  not  care  about  getting  rich ;  my 
goal  is  to  be  wise  with  God's  Wisdom '  ?  How  few  of 
us  order  our  lives  on  the  footing  of  this  old  teacher's 
lesson,  and  act  out  the  belief  that  Wisdom  is  more  than 
wealth !  The  man  who  heaps  millions  together,  and 
masses  it,  fails  in  life,  however  a  vulgar  world  and  a 
nominal  church  may  admire  and  glorify  him.  The  man 
who  wins  Wisdom  succeeds,  however  bare  may  be  his 
cupboard,  and  however  people  may  pity  him  for  having 


92  THE  PROVERBS  [ch.iii. 

failed  in  life,  because  he  has  not  drawn  prizes  in  the 
Devil's  lottery.  His  blank  is  a  prize,  and  their  prizes 
are  blanks.  This  decisive  subordination  of  material  to 
spiritual  good  is  too  plainly  duty  and  common  sense  to 
need  being  dwelt  upon ;  but,  alas !  like  a  great  many 
other  most  obvious,  accepted  truths,  it  is  disregarded  as 
universally  as  believed. 

The  inseparable  accompaniments  of  Wisdom  are  next 
eloquently  described.  The  picture  is  the  poetical  cloth- 
ing of  the  idea  that  all  material  good  will  come  to  him 
who  despises  it  all  and  clasps  Wisdom  to  his  heart. 
Some  things  flow  from  Wisdom  possessed  as  usual 
consequences ;  some  are  inseparable  from  her.  The 
gift  in  her  right  hand  is  length  of  days;  that  in  her 
left,  which,  by  its  position,  is  suggested  as  inferior  to 
the  former,  is  wealth  and  honour — two  goods  which 
will  attend  the  long  life.  No  doubt  such  promises  are 
to  be  taken  with  limitations;  but  there  need  be  no 
doubt  that,  on  the  whole,  loyal  devotion  to  and  real 
possession  of  heavenly  Wisdom  do  tend  in  the  direction 
of  lengthening  lives,  which  are  by  it  delivered  from 
vices  and  anxieties  which  cut  many  a  career  short,  and 
of  gathering  round  silver  hairs  reverence  and  troops  of 
friends. 

These  are  the  usual  consequences,  and  may  be  fairly 
brought  into  view  as  secondary  encouragements  to 
seek  Wisdom.  But  if  she  is  sought  for  the  sake  of 
getting  these  attendant  blessings,  she  will  not  be  found. 
She  must  be  loved  for  herself,  not  for  her  dowry,  or 
she  will  not  be  won.  At  the  same  time,  the  over- 
strained and  fantastic  morality,  which  stigmatises  regard 
to  the  blessed  results  of  a  religious  life  as  selfishness, 
finds  no  support  in  Scripture,  as  it  has  none  in  common 
sense.    Would  there  were  more  of  such  selfishness  I 


▼8.11-24]  GIFTS  OF  HEAVENLY  WISDOM  98 

Sometimes  Wisdom's  hands  do  not  hold  these  out- 
ward gifts.  But  the  connection  between  her  and  the 
next  blessings  spoken  of  is  inseparable.  Her  ways  are 
pleasantness  and  peace.  '  In  keeping ' — not  for  keeping 
— 'her  commandments  is  great  reward.'  Inward  de- 
light and  deep  tranquillity  of  heart  attend  every  step 
taken  in  obedience  to  Wisdom.  The  course  of  conduct 
so  prescribed  will  often  involve  painful  crucifying  of 
the  lower  nature,  but  its  pleasure  far  outweighs  its 
pain.  It  will  often  be  strewn  with  sharp  flints,  or  may 
even  have  red-hot  ploughshares  laid  on  it,  as  in  old 
ordeal  trials;  but  still  it  will  be  pleasant  to  the  true 
self.  Sin  is  a  blunder  as  well  as  a  crime,  and  enlightened 
self-interest  would  point  out  the  same  course  as  the 
highest  law  of  Wisdom.  In  reality,  duty  and  delight 
are  co-extensive.  They  are  two  names  for  one  thing — 
one  taken  from  consideration  of  its  obligation;  the 
other,  from  observation  of  its  issues.  '  Calm  pleasures 
there  abide.'  The  only  complete  peace,  which  fills  and 
quiets  the  whole  man,  comes  from  obeying  Wisdom, 
or  what  is  the  same  thing,  from  following  Christ. 
There  is  no  other  way  of  bringing  all  our  nature  into 
accord  with  itself,  ending  the  war  between  conscience 
and  inclination,  between  flesh  and  spirit.  There  is  no 
other  way  of  bringing  us  into  amity  with  all  circum- 
stances, so  that  fortunate  or  adverse  shall  be  recognised 
as  good,  and  nothing  be  able  to  agitate  us  very  much. 
Peace  with  ourselves,  the  world,  and  God,  is  always 
the  consequence  of  listening  to  Wisdom. 

The  whole  fair  picture  is  summed  up  in  verse  18 :  '  She 
is  a  tree  of  life  to  them  that  lay  hold  upon  her.'  This 
is  a  distinct  allusion  to  the  narrative  of  Genesis.  The 
flaming  sword  of  the  cherub  guard  is  sheathed,  and 
access  to  the  tree,  which  gives  immortal  life  to  those 


04  THE  PROVERBS  [ch.iii. 

who  eat,  is  open  to  us.  Mark  how  that  great  word 
•life'  is  here  gathering  to  itself  at  least  the  beginnings 
of  higher  conceptions  than  those  of  simple  existence. 
It  is  swelling  like  a  bud,  and  preparing  to  open  and 
disclose  the  perfect  flower,  the  life  which  stands  in  the 
knowledge  of  God  and  the  Christ  whom  He  has  sent. 
Jesus,  the  incarnate  Wisdom,  is  Himself  *  the  Tree  of 
Life  in  the  midst  of  the  paradise  of  God.'  The  condition 
of  access  to  it  is  '  laying  hold '  by  the  outstretched  hand 
of  faith,  and  keeping  hold  with  holy  obstinacy  of  grip, 
in  spite  of  all  temptations  to  slack  our  grasp.  That 
retaining  is  the  condition  of  true  blessedness. 

Verses  19  and  20  invest  the  idea  of  Wisdom  with 
still  loftier  sublimity,  since  they  declare  that  it  is  an 
attribute  of  God  Himself  by  which  creation  came  into 
being.  The  meaning  of  the  writer  is  inadequately 
grasped  if  we  take  it  to  be  only  that  creation  shows 
God's  Wisdom.  This  personified  Wisdom  dwells  with 
God,  is  the  agent  of  creation^  comes  with  invitations 
to  men,  may  be  possessed  by  them,  and  showers  bless- 
ings on  them.  The  planet  Neptune  was  divined  before 
it  was  discovered,  by  reason  of  perturbations  in  the 
movements  of  the  exterior  members  of  the  system, 
unaccountable  unless  some  great  globe  of  light,  hitherto 
unseen,  were  swaying  them  in  their  orbits.  Do  we  not 
see  here  like  influence  streaming  from  the  unrisen  light 
of  Christ?  Personification  prepares  for  Incarnation. 
There  is  One  who  has  been  with  the  Father  from  the 
beginning,  by  whom  all  things  came  into  being,  whose 
voice  sounds  to  all,  who  is  the  Tree  of  Life,  whom  we 
may  all  possess,  and  with  whose  own  peace  we  may  be 
peaceful  and  blessed  for  evermore. 

Verses  21-24  belong  to  the  next  section  of  the  great 
discourse  or  hymn.    They  add  little  to  the  preceding. 


vs.  11-24]  GIFTS  OF  HEAVENLY  WISDOM  95 

But  we  may  observe  the  earnest  exhortation  to  let 
wisdom  and  understanding  be  ever  in  sight.  Eyes  are 
apt  to  stray  and  clouds  to  hide  the  sun.  Effort  is 
needed  to  counteract  the  tendency  to  slide  out  of  con- 
sciousness, which  our  weakness  imposes  on  the  most 
certain  and  important  truths.  A  Wisdom  which  we 
do  not  think  about  is  as  good  or  as  bad  as  non-existent 
for  us.  One  prime  condition  of  healthy  spiritual  life  is 
the  habit  of  meditation,  thereby  renewing  our  gaze 
upon  the  facts  of  God's  revelation  and  the  bearing  of 
these  on  our  conduct. 

The  blessings  flowing  from  Wisdom  are  again  dilated 
on,  from  a  somewhat  different  point  of  view.  She  is 
the  giver  of  life.  And  then  she  adorns  the  life  she 
gives.  One  has  seen  homely  faces  so  refined  and 
glorified  by  the  fair  soul  that  shone  through  them  as 
to  be,  *  as  it  were,  the  face  of  an  angel.'  Gracefulness 
should  be  the  outward  token  of  inward  grace.  Some 
good  people  forget  that  they  are  bound  to  *  adorn  the 
doctrine.'  But  they  who  have  drunk  most  deeply  of 
the  fountain  of  Wisdom  will  find  that,  like  the  fabled 
spring,  its  waters  confer  strange  loveliness.  Lives 
spent  in  communion  with  Jesus  will  be  lovely,  however 
homely  their  surroundings,  and  however  vulgar  eyes, 
taught  only  to  admire  staring  colours,  may  find  them 
dull.  The  world  saw  'no  beauty  that  they  should 
desire  Him,'  in  Him  whom  holy  souls  and  heavenly 
angels  and  the  divine  Father  deemed  •  fairer  than  the 
sons  of  men ' ! 

Safety  and  firm  footing  in  active  life  will  be  ours  if 
we  walk  in  Wisdom's  ways.  He  who  follows  Christ's 
footsteps  will  tread  surely,  and  not  fear  foes.  Quiet 
repose  in  hours  of  rest  will  be  his.  A  day  filled  with 
happy  service  will  be  followed  by  a  night  full  of  calm 


96  THE  PROVERBS  [ch.  iv. 

slumber.  'Whether  we  sleep  or  wake,  we  live'  with 
Him;  and,  if  we  do  both,  sleeping  and  waking  will 
be  blessed,  and  our  lives  will  move  on  gently  to  the  time 
when  days  and  nights  shall  melt  into  one,  and  there  will 
be  no  need  for  repose ;  for  there  will  be  no  work  that 
wearies  and  no  hands  that  droop.  The  last  lying  down 
in  the  grave  will  be  attended  with  no  terrors.  The  last 
sleep  there  shall  be  sweet ;  for  it  will  really  be  awaking 
to  the  full  possession  of  the  personal  Wisdom,  who  is 
our  Christ,  our  Life  in  death,  our  Heaven  in  heaven. 


THE  TWO  PATHS 

'Hear,  O  my  son,  and  receive  my  sayings ;  and  the  years  of  thy  life  shall  be  many. 
U.  I  have  taught  thee  in  the  way  of  wisdom  ;  I  have  led  thee  in  right  paths. 
12.  When  thou  goest,  thy  steps  shall  not  be  straitened ;  and  when  thou  runnest, 
thou  Shalt  not  stumble.  13.  Take  fast  hold  of  instruction ;  let  her  not  go :  keep 
her ;  for  she  is  thy  life.  14.  Enter  not  into  the  path  of  the  wicked,  and  go  not  in 
the  way  of  evil  men.  15.  Avoid  it,  pass  not  by  it,  turn  from  it,  and  pass  away. 
16.  For  they  sleep  not,  except  they  have  done  mischief ;  and  their  sleep  is  taken 
away,  unless  they  cause  some  to  fall.  17.  For  they  eat  the  bread  of  wickedness, 
and  drink  the  wine  of  violence.  18.  But  the  path  of  the  just  is  as  the  shining 
light,  that  shineth  more  and  more  unto  the  perfect  day.  19.  The  way  of  the 
wicked  is  as  darkness ;  they  know  not  at  what  they  stumble.'— Proverbs  iv.  10-19. 

This  passage  includes  much  more  than  temperance  or 
any  other  single  virtue.  It  is  a  perfectly  general 
exhortation  to  that  practical  wisdom  which  walks  in 
the  path  of  righteousness.  The  principles  laid  down 
here  are  true  in  regard  to  drunkenness  and  abstinence, 
but  they  are  intended  to  receive  a  wider  application, 
and  to  that  wider  application  we  must  first  look.  The 
theme  is  the  old,  familiar  one  of  the  two  paths,  and 
the  aim  is  to  recommend  the  better  way  by  setting 
forth  the  contrasted  effects  of  walking  in  it  and  in  the 
other. 

The  general  call  to  listen  in  verse  10  is  characteristi- 
cally enforced  by  the  Old  Testament  assurance  that 


vs  10-19]  THE  TWO  PATHS  97 

obedience  prolongs  life.  That  is  a  New  Testament 
truth  as  well ;  for  there  is  nothing  more  certain  than 
that  a  life  in  conformity  with  God's  will,  which  is  the 
same  thing  as  a  life  in  conformity  with  physical  laws, 
tends  to  longevity.  The  experience  of  any  doctor  will 
show  that.  Here  in  England  we  have  statistics  which 
prove  that  total  abstainers  are  a  long-lived  people, 
and  some  insurance  offices  construct  their  tables 
accordingly. 

After  that  general  call  to  listen  comes,  in  verse  11, 
the  description  of  the  path  in  which  long  life  is  to  be 
found.  It  is  '  the  way  of  Wisdom ' — that  is,  that  which 
Wisdom  prescribes,  and  in  which  therefore  it  is  wise  to 
walk.  It  is  always  foolish  to  do  wrong.  The  rough 
title  of  an  old  play  is  The  Devil  is  an  Ass,  and  if  that 
is  not  true  about  him,  it  is  absolutely  true  about  those 
who  listen  to  his  lies.  Sin  is  the  stupidest  thing  in  the 
universe,  for  it  ignores  the  plainest  facts,  and  never 
gets  what  it  flings  away  so  much  to  secure. 

Another  aspect  of  the  path  is  presented  in  the 
designation  *  paths  of  uprightness,'  which  seems  to  be 
equivalent  to  those  which  belong  to,  or  perhaps  which 
consist  of,  uprightness.  The  idea  of  straightness  or 
evenness  is  the  primary  meaning  of  the  word,  and  is, 
of  course,  appropriate  to  the  image  of  a  path.  In  the 
moral  view,  it  suggests  how  much  more  simple  and 
easy  a  course  of  rectitude  is  than  one  of  sin.  The  one 
goes  straight  and  unswerving  to  its  end ;  the  other  is 
crooked,  devious,  intricate,  and  wanders  from  the  true 
goal.  A  crooked  road  is  a  long  road,  and  an  up-and- 
down  road  is  a  tiring  road.  Wisdom's  way  is  straight, 
level,  and  steadily  approaches  its  aim. 

In  verse  13  the  image  of  the  path  is  dropped  for  the 
moment,  and  the  picture  of  the  way  of  uprightness  and 


98  THE  PROVERBS  [ch.iv. 

its  travellers  is  translated  into  the  plain  exhortation  to 
keep  fast  hold  of  'instruction,'  which  is  substantially 
equivalent  to  the  queenly  Wisdom  of  these  early 
chapters  of  Proverbs.  The  earnestness  of  the  repeated 
exhortations  implies  the  strength  of  the  forces  that 
tend  to  sweep  us,  especially  those  of  us  who  are  young, 
from  our  grasp  of  that  Wisdom.  Hands  become  slack, 
and  many  a  good  gift  drops  from  nerveless  fingers; 
thieves  abound  who  will  filch  away  '  instruction,'  if  we 
do  not  resolutely  hold  tight  by  it.  Who  would  walk 
through  the  slums  of  a  city  holding  jewels  with  a 
careless  grasp,  and  never  looking  at  them?  How 
many  would  he  have  left  if  he  did  ?  We  do  not  need 
to  do  anything  to  lose  instruction.  If  we  will  only  do 
nothing  to  keep  it,  the  world  and  our  own  hearts  will 
make  sure  that  we  lose  it.  And  if  we  lose  it,  we  lose 
ourselves ;  for  '  she  is  thy  life,'  and  the  mere  bodily  life, 
that  is  lived  without  her,  is  not  worth  calling  the  life 
of  a  man. 

Verses  14  to  17  give  the  picture  of  the  other  path,  in 
terrible  contrast  with  the  preceding.  It  is  noteworthy 
that,  while  in  the  former  the  designation  was  the  '  path 
of  uprightness '  or  of  '  wisdom,'  and  the  description 
therefore  was  mainly  of  the  characteristics  of  the 
path,  here  the  designation  is  '  the  path  of  the  wicked^ 
and  the  description  is  mainly  of  the  travellers  on  it 
Righteousness  was  dealt  with,  as  it  were,  in  the 
abstract;  but  wickedness  is  too  awful  and  dark  to  be 
painted  thus,  and  is  only  set  forth  in  the  concrete,  as 
seen  in  its  doers.  Now,  it  is  significant  that  the  first 
exhortation  here  is  of  a  negative  character.  In  contrast 
with  the  reiterated  exhortations  to  keep  wisdom,  here 
are  reiterated  counsels  to  steer  clear  of  evil.  It  is  all 
about  us,  and  we  have  to  make  a  strong  effort  to  keep 


vs.  10-19]  THE  TWO  PATHS  99 

it  at  arm's-length.  '  Whom  resist '  is  imperative.  True, 
negative  virtue  is  incomplete,  but  there  will  be  no 
positive  virtue  withovit  it.  We  must  be  accustomed  to 
say  '  No,'  or  we  shall  come  to  little  good.  An  outer 
belt  of  firs  is  sometimes  planted  round  a  centre  of  more 
tender  and  valuable  wood  to  shelter  the  young  trees ; 
so  we  have  to  make  a  fence  of  abstinences  round  our 
plantation  of  positive  virtues.  The  decalogue  is  mostly 
prohibitions.  '  So  did  not  I,  because  of  the  fear  of 
God '  must  be  our  motto.  In  this  light,  entire  abstin- 
ence from  intoxicants  is  seen  to  be  part  of  the  '  way  of 
Wisdom.'  It  is  one,  and,  in  the  present  state  of  England 
and  America,  perhaps  the  most  important,  of  the  ways 
by  which  we  can  '  turn  from '  the  path  of  the  wicked 
and  '  pass  on.' 

The  picture  of  the  wicked  in  verses  16  and  17  is  that 
of  very  grossly  criminal  sinners.  They  are  only  content 
when  they  have  done  harm,  and  delight  in  making- 
others  as  bad  as  themselves.  But,  diabolical  as  such  a 
disposition  is,  one  sees  it  only  too  often  in  full  opera- 
tion. How  many  a  drunkard  or  impure  man  finds  a 
fiendish  pleasure  in  getting  hold  of  some  innocent  lad, 
and  '  putting  him  up  to  a  thing  or  two,'  which  means 
teaching  him  the  vices  from  which  the  teacher  has 
ceased  to  get  much  pleasure,  and  which  he  has  to  spice 
with  the  condiment  of  seeing  an  unaccustomed  sinner's 
eagerness !  Such  people  infest  our  streets,  and  there  is 
only  one  way  for  a  young  man  to  be  safe  from  them, — 
'avoid,  pass  not  by,  turn  from,  and  pass  on.'  The 
reference  to  '  bread '  and  '  wine '  in  verse  17  seems 
simply  to  mean  that  the  wicked  men's  living  is  won  by 
their  '  wickedness,'  which  procures  bread,  and  by  their 
*  violence,'  which  brings  them  wine.  It  is  the  way  by 
which  these  are  obtained  that  is  culpable.    We  may 


100  THE  PROVERBS  [oh.it. 

contrast  this  foul  source  of  a  degraded  living  with 
verse  13,  where  *  instruction '  is  set  forth  as  '  the  life '  of 
the  upright. 

Verses  18  and  19  bring  more  closely  together  the  two 
paths,  and  set  them  in  final,  forcible  contrast.  The 
phrase  'the  perfect  day'  might  be  rendered,  vividly 
though  clumsily,  'the  steady  of  the  day' — that  is,  noon, 
when  the  sun  seems  to  stand  still  in  the  meridian.  So 
the  image  compares  the  path  of  the  just  to  the  growing 
brightness  of  morning  dawn,  becoming  more  and  more 
fervid  and  lustrous,  till  the  climax  of  an  Eastern 
midday.  No  more  sublime  figure  of  the  continuous  pro- 
gress in  goodness,  brightness,  and  joy,  which  is  the 
best  reward  of  walking  in  the  paths  of  uprightness, 
can  be  imagined;  and  it  is  as  true  as  it  is  sublime. 
Blessed  they  who  in  the  morning  of  their  days  begin  to 
walk  in  the  way  of  wisdom ;  for,  in  most  cases,  years 
will  strengthen  their  uprightness,  and  to  that  progress 
there  will  be  no  termination,  nor  will  the  midday  sun 
hare  to  decline  westward  to  diminishing  splendour 
or  dismal  setting,  but  that  noontide  glory  will  be  en- 
hanced, and  made  eternal  in  a  new  heaven.  The 
brighter  the  light,  the  darker  the  shadow.  That  blaze 
of  growing  glory,  possible  for  us  all,  makes  the  tragic 
gloom  to  which  evil  men  condemn  themselves  the 
thicker  and  more  doleful,  as  some  dungeon  in  an 
Eastern  prison  seems  pitch  dark  to  one  coming  in  from 
the  blaze  outside.  *  How  great  is  that  darkness  ! '  It 
is  the  darkness  of  sin,  of  ignorance,  of  sorrow,  and 
what  adds  deeper  gloom  to  it  is  that  every  soul  that 
sits  in  that  shadow  of  death  might  have  been  shining, 
a  sun,  in  the  spacious  heaven  of  God's  love. 


MONOTONY  AND  CRISES 

When  thou  goesfc,  thy  steps  shall  not  be  straitened ;  and  when  thou  numeat, 
thou  Shalt  not  stumble.'— Proverbs  iv.  12. 

The  old  metaphor  likening  life  to  a  path  has  many 
felicities  in  it.  It  suggests  constant  change,  it  suggests 
continuous  progress  in  one  direction,  and  that  all  our 
days  are  linked  together,  and  are  not  isolated  frag- 
ments ;  and  it  suggests  an  aim  and  an  end.  So  we  find 
it  perpetually  in  this  Book  of  Proverbs.  Here  the 
'way'  has  a  specific  designation,  'the  way  of  Wisdom' 
— that  is  to  say,  the  way  which  Wisdom  teaches,  and 
the  w^ay  on  which  Wisdom  accompanies  us,  and  the  way 
which  leads  to  Wisdom.  Now,  these  two  clauses  of  my 
text  are  not  merely  an  instance  of  the  peculiar  feature 
of  Hebrew  poetry  called  parallelism,  in  which  two 
clauses,  substantially  the  same,  occur,  but  with  a  little 
pleasing  difference.  'When  thou  goest' — that  is,  the 
monotonous  tramp,  tramp,  tramp  of  slow  walking 
along  the  path  of  an  uneventful  daily  life,  the  hum- 
drum 'one  foot  up  and  another  foot  down'  which 
makes  the  most  of  our  days.  'When  thou  runnest' 
—  that  points  to  the  crises,  the  sudden  spurts,  the 
necessarily  brief  bursts  of  more  than  usual  energy 
and  effort  and  difficulty.  And  about  both  of  them,  the 
humdrum  and  the  exciting,  the  monotonous  and  the 
startling,  the  promise  comes  that  if  we  walk  in  the 
path  of  Wisdom  we  shall  not  get  disgusted  with  the 
one  and  we  shall  not  be  overwhelmed  by  the  other. 
•  When  thou  walkest,  thy  steps  shall  not  be  straitened ; 
when  thou  runnest,  thou  shalt  not  stumble.' 

But  before  I  deal  with  these  two  clauses  specifically, 
let  me  recall  to  you  the  condition,  and  the  sole  con- 

101 


102  THE  PROVERBS  [ch.  iv. 

dition,  upon  which  either  of  them  can  be  fulfilled  in  our 
daily  lives.  The  book  from  which  my  text  is  taken  is 
probably  one  of  the  very  latest  in  the  Old  Testament, 
and  you  catch  in  it  a  very  significant  and  marvellous 
development  of  the  Old  Testament  thought.  For  there 
rises  up,  out  of  these  early  chapters  of  the  Book  of 
Proverbs,  that  august  and  serene  figure  of  the  queenly 
Wisdom,  which  is  more  than  a  personification  and  is 
less  than  a  person  and  a  prophecy.  It  means  more 
than  the  wise  man  that  spoke  it  saw ;  it  means  for  us 
Christ,  *  the  Power  of  God  and  the  Wisdom  of  God.' 
And  so  instead  of  keeping  ourselves  merely  to  the  word 
(jf  the  Book  of  Proverbs,  we  must  grasp  the  thing  that 
shines  through  the  word,  and  realise  that  the  writer's 
'/isions  can  only  become  realities  when  the  serene  and 
august  Wisdom  that  he  saw  shimmering  through  the 
darkness  took  to  itself  a  human  Form,  and  '  the  Word 
became  flesh,  and  dwelt  among  us.' 

With  that  heightening  of  the  meaning  of  the  phrase, 
'  the  path  of  Wisdom '  assumes  a  heightened  meaning 
too,  for  it  is  the  path  of  the  personal  Wisdom,  the  In- 
carnate Wisdom,  Christ  Himself.  And  what  does  it 
then  come  to  be  to  obey  this  command  to  walk  in  the 
way  of  Wisdom  ?  Put  it  into  three  sentences.  Let  the 
Christ  who  is  not  only  wise,  but  Wisdom,  choose  your 
path,  and  be  sure  that  by  the  submission  of  your  will 
all  your  paths  are  His,  and  not  only  yours.  Make  His 
path  yours  by  following  in  His  steps,  and  do  in  your 
place  what  you  think  Christ  would  have  done  if  He  had 
been  there.  Keep  company  with  Him  on  the  road.  If 
we  will  do  these  three  things — if  we  will  say  to  Him, 
*  Lord,  when  Thou  sayest  go,  I  go  ;  when  Thou  biddest 
me  come,  I  come ;  I  am  Thy  slave,  and  I  rejoice  in  the 
bondage  more  than  in  all  licentious  liberty,  and  what 


V.12]         MONOTONY  AND  CRISES  103 

Thou  biddest  me  do,  I  do ' — if  you  will  further  say,  *  As 
Thou  art,  so  am  I  in  the  world ' — and  if  you  will  furthei- 
say,  '  Leave  me  not  alone,  and  let  me  cling  to  Thee  on 
the  road,  as  a  little  child  holds  on  by  her  mother's  skirt 
or  her  father's  hand,'  then,  and  only  then,  will  you  walk 
in  the  path  of  Wisdom. 

Now,  then,  these  three  things — submission  of  will, 
conformity  of  conduct,  closeness  of  companionship — 
these  three  things  being  understood,  let  us  look  for  a 
moment  at  the  blessings  that  this  text  promises,  and 
first  at  the  promise  for  long  uneventful  stretches  of 
our  daily  life.  That,  of  course,  is  mainly  the  largest 
proportion  of  all  our  lives.  Perhaps  nine-tenths  at 
least  of  all  our  days  and  years  fall  under  the  terms  of 
this  first  promise,  'When  thou  walkest.'  For  many 
miles  there  comes  nothing  particular,  nothing  at  all 
exciting,  nothing  new,  nothing  to  break  the  plod,  plod, 
plod  along  the  road.  Everything  is  as  it  was  yesterday, 
and  the  day  before  that,  and  as  it  will  be  to-morrow, 
and  the  day  after  that,  in  all  probability.  '  The  trivial 
round,  the  common  task  '  make  up  by  far  the  largest  per- 
centage of  our  lives.  It  is  as  in  wine,  the  immense 
proportion  of  it  is  nothing  but  water,  and  only  a  small 
proportion  of  alcohol  is  diffused  through  the  great 
mass  of  the  tamer  liquid. 

Now,  then,  if  Jesus  Christ  is  not  to  help  us  in  the 
monotony  of  our  daily  lives,  what,  in  the  name  of 
common  sense,  is  His  help  good  for  ?  If  it  is  not  true 
that  He  will  be  with  us,  not  only  in  the  moments  of 
crisis,  but  in  the  long  commonplace  hours,  we  may  as 
well  have  no  Christ  at  all,  for  all  that  I  can  see.  Unless 
the  trivial  is  His  field,  there  is  very  little  field  for  Him, 
in  your  life  or  mine.  And  so  it  should  come  to  all  of  us 
who  have  to  take  up  this  daily  burden  of  small,  mono- 


104  THE  PROVERBS  [ch.iv. 

tonous,  constantly  recurring,  and  therefore  often 
wearisome,  duties,  as  even  a  more  blessed  promise 
than  the  other  one,  that '  when  thou  walkest,  thy  steps 
shall  not  be  straitened.' 

I  remember  hearing  of  a  man  that  got  so  disgusted 
with  having  to  dress  and  undress  himself  every  day 
that  he  committed  suicide  to  escape  from  the  necessity. 
That  is  a  very  extreme  form  of  the  feeling  that  comes 
over  us  all  sometimes,  when  we  wake  in  a  morning  and 
look  before  us  along  the  stretch  of  dead  level,  which  is 
a  great  deal  more  wearisome  when  it  lasts  long  than 
are  the  cheerful  vicissitudes  of  up  hill  and  down  dale. 
We  all  know  the  deadening  influence  of  a  habit. 
We  all  know  the  sense  of  disgust  that  comes  over  ug 
at  times,  and  of  utter  weariness,  just  because  we  have 
been  doing  the  same  things  day  after  day  for  so  long. 
I  know  only  one  infallible  way  of  preventing  the 
common  from  becoming  commonplace,  of  preventing 
the  small  from  becoming  trivial,  of  preventing  the 
familiar  from  becoming  contemptible,  and  it  is  to  link 
it  all  to  Jesus  Christ,  and  to  say,  '  For  Thy  sake,  and 
unto  Thee,  I  do  this ' ;  then,  not  only  will  the  rough 
places  become  plain,  and  the  crooked  things  straight, 
and  not  only  will  the  mountains  be  brought  low,  but 
the  valleys  of  the  commonplace  will  be  exalted.  '  Thy 
steps  shall  not  be  straitened.'  '  I  will  make  his  feet  as 
hind's  feet,'  says  one  of  the  old  prophets.  What  a 
picture  of  light,  buoyant,  graceful  movement  that  is ! 
And  each  of  us  may  have  that,  instead  of  the  grind, 
grind,  grind  1  tramp,  tramp,  tramp  !  along  the  level  and 
commonplace  road  of  our  daily  lives,  if  we  will.  Walk 
in  the  path  of  Christ,  with  Christ,  towards  Christ,  and 
'  thy  steps  shall  not  be  straitened.' 

Now,  there  is  another  aspect  of  this  same  promise — 


Y.  12]         MONOTONY  AND  CRISES  105 

Tiz.  if  we  thus  are  in  the  path  of  Incarnate  Wisdom, 
we  shall  not  feel  the  restrictions  of  the  road  to  be 
restraints.  'Thy  steps  shall  not  be  straitened';  although 
there  is  a  wall  on  either  side,  and  the  road  is  the 
narrow  way  that  leads  to  life,  it  is  broad  enough  for 
the  sober  man,  because  he  goes  in  a  straight  line,  and 
does  not  need  half  the  road  to  roll  about  in.  The  limits 
which  love  imposes,  and  the  limits  which  love  accepts, 
are  not  narrowing.  *  I  will  walk  at  liberty,  for — I  do 
as  I  like.'  No !  that  is  slavery ;  but,  '  I  will  walk  at 
liberty,  for  I  keep  Thy  precepts ' ;  and  I  do  not  want  to 
go  vagrantising  at  large,  but  limit  myself  thankfully 
to  the  way  which  Thou  dost  mark  out.  'Thy  steps 
shall  not  be  straitened.'  So  much  for  the  first  of  these 
promises. 

Now  what  about  the  other  one  ?  *  When  thou  run- 
nest,  thou  shalt  not  stumble.' 

As  I  have  said,  the  former  promise  applies  to  the 
hours  and  the  years  of  life.  The  latter  applies  to  but 
a  few  moments  of  each  man's  life.  Cast  your  thoughts 
back  over  your  own  days,  and  however  changeful, 
eventful,  perhaps  adventurous,  and  as  we  people  call 
it,  romantic,  some  parts  of  our  lives  may  have  been, 
yet  for  all  that  you  can  put  the  turning-points,  the 
crises  that  have  called  for  great  efforts,  and  the  gather- 
ing of  yourselves  up,  and  the  calling  forth  of  all  your 
powers  to  do  and  to  dare,  you  can  put  them  all  inside 
of  a  week,  in  most  cases.  '  When  thou  runnest,  thou 
shalt  not  stumble.'  The  greater  the  speed,  the  greater 
the  risk  of  stumbling  over  some  obstacle  in  the  way. 
We  all  know  how  many  men  there  are  that  do  very 
well  in  the  uneventful  commonplaces  of  life,  but  bring 
them  face  to  face  with  some  great  diiSculty  or  some 
great  trial,  and  there  is  a  dismal  failure.    Jesus  Christ 


106  THE  PROVERBS  [ch.iv. 

is  ready  to  make  us  fit  for  anything  in  the  way  of 
difficulty,  in  the  way  of  trial,  that  can  come  storming 
upon  us  from  out  of  the  dark.  And  He  will  make  us 
so  fit  if  we  follow  the  injunctions  to  which  I  have 
already  been  referring.  Without  His  help  it  is  almost 
certain  that  when  we  have  to  run,  our  ankles  will  give, 
or  there  will  be  a  stone  in  the  road  that  we  never 
thought  of,  and  the  excitement  will  sweep  us  away 
from  principle,  and  we  shall  lose  our  hold  on  Him ;  and 
then  it  is  all  up  with  us. 

There  is  a  wonderful  saying  in  one  of  the  prophets, 
which  u«es  this  same  metaphor  of  my  text  with  a 
difference,  where  it  speaks  of  the  divine  guidance  of 
Israel  as  being  like  that  of  a  horse  in  the  wilderness. 
Fancy  the  poor,  nervous,  tremulous  creature  trying  to 
keep  its  footing  upon  the  smooth  granite  slabs  of 
Sinai.  Travellers  dare  not  take  their  horses  on 
mountain  journeys,  because  they  are  highly  nervous 
and  are  not  sure-footed  enough.  And,  so  says  the  old 
prophet,  that  gracious  Hand  will  be  laid  on  the  bridle, 
and  hold  the  nervous  creature's  head  up  as  it  goes 
sliding  over  the  slippery  rocks,  and  so  He  will  bring  it 
down  to  rest  in  the  valley.  'Now  unto  Him  that  is 
able  to  keep  us  from  stumbling,'  as  is  the  true  render- 
ing, 'and  to  present  us  faultless  ...  be  glory.'  Trust 
Him,  keep  near  Him,  let  Him  choose  your  way,  and  try 
to  be  like  Him  in  it;  and  whatever  great  occasions  may 
arise  in  your  lives,  either  of  sorrow  or  of  duty,  you  will 
be  equal  to  them. 

But  remember  the  virtue,  that  comes  out  victorious 
in  the  crisis  must  have  been  nourished  and  cultivated 
in  the  humdrum  moments.  For  it  is  no  time  to  make 
one's  first  acquaintance  with  Jesus  Christ  when  the 
eyeballs  of  some  ravenous  wild  beast  are  staring  into 


V.  12]         MONOTONY  AND  CRISES  107 

ours,  and  its  mouth  is  open  to  swallow  us.  Unless  He 
has  kept  our  feet  from  being  sti'aitened  in  the  quiet 
walk,  He  will  not  be  able  to  keep  us  from  stumbling  in 
the  vehement  run. 

One  word  more.  This  same  distinction  is  drawn  by 
one  of  the  prophets,  who  adds  another  clause  to  it. 
Isaiah,  or  the  author  of  the  second  portion  of  the 
book  which  goes  by  his  name,  puts  in  wonderful 
connection  the  two  thoughts  of  my  text  with  analo- 
gous thoughts  in  regard  to  God,  when  he  says, '  Hast 
thou  not  known,  hast  thou  not  heard,  that  the  ever- 
lasting God,  the  Lord,  the  Creator  of  the  ends  of 
the  earth,  fainteth  not,  neither  is  weary  ? '  and 
immediately  goes  on  to  say,  'They  that  wait  on  the 
Lord  shall  renew  their  strength.  They  shall  run  and 
not  be  weary,  they  shall  walk  and  not  faint.'  So  it 
is  from  God,  the  unfainting  and  the  unwearied,  that 
the  strength  comes  which  makes  our  steps  buoyant 
with  energy  amidst  the  commonplace,  and  steadfast 
and  established  at  the  crises  of  our  lives.  But '  before 
these  two  great  promises  is  put  another  one :  '  They 
shall  mount  up  with  wings  as  eagles,'  and  therefore 
both  the  other  become  possible.  That  is  to  say,  fellow- 
ship with  God  in  the  heavens,  which  is  made  possible 
on  earth  by  communion  with  Christ,  is  the  condition 
both  of  the  unwearied  running  and  of  unfainting  walk- 
ing. If  we  will  keep  in  the  path  of  Christ,  He  will  take 
care  of  the  commonplace  dreary  tracts  and  of  the  brief 
moments  of  strain  and  effort,  and  will  bring  us  at  last 
where  He  has  gone,  if,  looking  unto  Him,  we  '  run  with 
patience  the  race,'  and  walk  with  cheerfulness  the  road, 
'  that  is  set  before  us.' 


FROM   DAWN   TO   NOON 

'The  path  of  the  jast  is  as  the  shining  light,  that  shineth  more  and  mora  vnto 
the  perfect  day.'— Pkoverbs  iv.  18. 

'  Then  shall  the  righteous  shine  forth  as  the  sun  in  the  kingdom  of  their  father.' 
—Matt.  xiii.  43. 

The  metaphor  common  to  both  these  texts  is  not 
infrequent  throughout  Scripture.  In  one  of  the  oldest 
parts  of  the  Old  Testament,  Deborah's  triumphal  song, 
we  find,  'Let  all  them  that  love  Thee  be  as  the  sun 
when  he  goeth  forth  in  his  might.'  In  one  of  the  latest 
parts  of  the  Old  Testament,  Daniel's  prophecy,  we  read, 
'  They  that  be  wise  shall  shine  as  the  brightness  of  the 
firmament ;  and  they  that  turn  many  to  righteousness 
as  the  stars  for  ever  and  ever.'  Then  in  the  New  Testa- 
ment we  have  Christ's  comparison  of  Hii  servants  to 
light,  and  the  great  promise  which  I  have  read  as  my 
second  text.  The  upshot  of  them  all  is  this — the  most 
radiant  thing  on  earth  is  the  character  of  a  good  man. 
The  world  calls  men  of  genius  and  intellectual  force  its 
lights.  The  divine  estimate,  which  is  the  true  one, 
confers  the  name  on  righteousness. 

But  my  first  text  follows  out  another  analogy;  not 
only  brightness,  but  progressive  brightness,  is  the 
characteristic  of  the  righteous  man. 

We  are  to  think  of  the  strong  Eastern  sun,  whose 
blinding  light  steadily  increases  till  the  noontide.  'The 
perfect  day'  is  a  somewhat  unfortunate  translation. 
What  is  meant  is  the  point  of  time  at  which  the  day 
culminates,  and  for  a  moment,  the  sun  seems  to  stand 
steady,  up  in  those  southern  lands,  in  the  very  zenith, 
raying  down  '  the  arrows  that  fly  by  noonday.'  The 
text  does  not  go  any  further,  it  does  not  talk  about  the 
Bad  diminution  of  the  afternoon.  The  parallel  does 
not  hold ;  though,  if  we  consult  appearance  and  sense 


V.18]  FROM  DAWN  TO  NOON  109 

alone,  it  seems  to  hold  only  too  well.  For,  sadder  than 
the  setting  of  the  suns,  which  rise  again  to-morrow,  is 
the  sinking  into  darkness  of  death,  from  which  there 
seems  to  be  no  emerging.  But  my  second  text  comes 
in  to  tell  us  that  death  is  but  as  the  shadow  of  eclipse 
which  passes,  and  with  it  pass  obscuring  clouds  and 
envious  mists,  and  '  then  shall  the  righteous  blaze  forth 
like  the  sun  in  their  Heavenly  Father's  kingdom.' 

And  so  the  two  texts  speak  to  us  of  the  progressive 
brightness,  and  the  ultimate,  which  is  also  the  pro- 
gressive, radiance  of  the  righteous. 

I.  In  looking  at  them  together,  then,  I  would  notice, 
first,  what  a  Christian  life  is  meant  to  be. 

I  must  not  linger  on  the  lovely  thoughts  that  are 
suggested  by  that  attractive  metaphor  of  life.  It  must 
be  enough,  for  our  present  purpose,  to  say  that  the 
light  of  the  Christian  life,  like  its  type  in  the  heavens, 
may  be  analysed  into  three  beams — purity,  knowledge, 
blessedness.  And  these  three,  blended  together,  make 
the  pure  whiteness  of  a  Christian  soul. 

But  what  I  wish  rather  to  dwell  upon  is  the  other 
thought,  the  intention  that  every  Christian  life  should 
be  a.  life  of  increasing  lustre,  uninterrupted,  and  the 
natural  result  of  increasing  communion  with,  and 
conformity  to,  the  very  fountain  itself  of  heavenly 
radiance. 

Remember  how  emphatically,  in  all  sorts  of  ways, 
progress  is  laid  down  in  Scripture  as  the  mark  of 
a  religious  life.  There  is  the  emblem  of  my  text. 
There  is  our  Lord's  beautiful  one  of  vegetable  growth : 
'First  the  blade,  then  the  ear,  then  the  full  corn  in  the 
ear.'  There  is  the  other  metaphor  of  the  stages  of 
human  life,  'babes  in  Christ,'  young  men  in  Him,  old 
men  and  fathers.    There  is  the  metaphor  of  the  growth 


110     •  THE  PROVERBS  [ch.iv. 

of  the  body.  There  is  the  metaphor  of  the  gradual 
building  up  of  a  structure.  We  are  to  'edify  ourselves 
together,'  and  to  '  build  ourselves  up  on  our  most  holy 
faith.'  There  is  the  other  emblem  of  a  race — continual 
advance  as  the  result  of  continual  exertion,  and  the 
use  of  the  powers  bestovs^ed  upon  us. 

And  so  in  all  these  ways,  and  in  many  others  that 
I  need  not  now  touch  upon,  Scripture  lays  it  down  as 
a  rule  that  life  in  the  highest  region,  like  life  in  the 
lowest,  is  marked  by  continual  growth.  It  is  so  in 
regard  to  all  other  things.  Continuity  in  any  kind  of 
practice  gives  increasing  power  in  the  art.  The  artisan, 
the  blacksmith  with  his  hammer,  the  skilled  artificer  at 
his  trade,  the  student  at  his  subject,  the  good  man  in 
his  course  of  life,  and  the  bad  man  in  his,  do  equally 
show  that  use  becomes  second  nature.  And  so,  in  pass- 
ing, let  me  say  what  incalculable  importance  there  is  in 
our  getting  habit,  with  all  its  mystical  power  to  mould 
life,  on  the  side  of  righteousness,  and  of  becoming 
accvistomed  to  do  good,  and  so  being  unfamiliar  with 
evil. 

Let  me  remind  you,  too,  how  this  intention  of  con- 
tinuous growth  is  marked  by  the  gifts  that  are  be- 
stowed upon  us  in  Jesus  Christ.  He  gives  us — and  it 
is  by  no  means  the  least  of  the  gifts  that  He  bestows — 
an  absolutely  unattainable  aim  as  the  object  of  our 
efforts.  For  He  bids  us  not  only  be  'perfect,  as  our 
Father  in  Heaven  is  perfect,'  but  He  bids  us  be  entirely 
conformed  to  His  own  Self.  The  misery  of  men  is  that 
they  pursue  aims  so  narrow  and  so  shabby  that  they 
can  be  attained,  and  are  therefore  left  behind,  to  sink 
hull  down  on  the  backward  horizon.  But  to  have 
before  us  an  aim  which  is  absolutely  unreachable, 
instead  of  being,  as  ignorant  people  say,  an  occasion  of 


V.  18]  FROM  DAWN  TO  NOON  111 

despair  and  of  idleness,  is,  on  the  contrary,  the  very- 
salt  of  life.  It  keeps  us  young,  it  makes  hope  immortal, 
it  emancipates  from  lower  pursuits,  it  diminishes  the 
weight  of  sorrows,  it  administers  an  anaesthetic  to 
every  pain.  If  you  want  to  keep  life  fresh,  seek  for 
that  which  you  can  never  fully  find. 

Christ  gives  us  infinite  powers  to  reach  that  un- 
attainable aim,  for  He  gives  us  access  to  all  His  own 
fullness,  and  there  is  more  in  His  storehouses  than  we 
can  ever  take,  not  to  say  more  than  we  can  ever  hope 
to  exhaust.  And  therefore,  because  of  the  aim  that  is 
set  before  us,  and  because  of  the  powers  that  are  be- 
stowed upon  us  to  reach  it,  there  is  stamped  upon 
every  Christian  life  unmistakably  as  God's  purpose  and 
ideal  concerning  it,  that  it  should  for  ever  and  for 
ever  be  growing  nearer  and  nearer,  as  some  ascending 
spiral  that  ever  circles  closer  and  closer,  and  yet  never 
absolutely  unites  with  the  great  central  Perfection 
which  is  Himself. 

So,  brethren,  for  every  one  of  us,  if  we  are  Christian 
people  at  all,  'this  is  the  will  of  God,  even  your 
perfection.' 

II.  Consider  the  sad  contrast  of  too  many  Christian 
lives. 

I  would  not  speak  in  terms  that  might  seem  to  be 
reproach  and  scolding.  The  matter  is  far  too  serious, 
the  disease  far  too  widespread,  to  need  or  to  warrant 
any  exaggeration.  But,  dear  brethren,  there  are  many 
so-called  and,  in  a  fashion,  really  Christian  people  to 
whom  Christ  and  His  work  are  mainly,  if  not  exclu- 
sively, the  means  of  escaping  the  consequences  of  sin — 
a  kind  of  *  fire-escape.'  And  to  very  many  it  comes  as 
a  new  thought,  in  so  far  as  their  practical  lives  are 
concerned,  that  these  ought   to  be  lives  of   steadily 


112  THE  PROVERBS  [ch.iv. 

increasing  deliverance  from  the  love  and  the  power  of 
sin,  and  steadily  increasing  appropriation  and  mani- 
festation of  Christ's  granted  righteousness.  There  are, 
I  think,  many  of  us  from  whom  the  very  notion  of 
progress  has  faded  away.  I  am  sure  there  are  some  of 
us  who  were  a  great  deal  farther  on  on  the  path  of  the 
Christian  life  years  ago,  when  we  first  felt  that  Christ 
was  anything  to  us,  than  we  are  to-day.  '  When  for 
the  time  ye  ought  to  be  teachers,  ye  have  need  that  one 
teach  you  which  be  the  first  principles  of  the  oracles 
of  God.' 

There  is  an  old  saying  of  one  of  the  prophets  that  a 
child  would  die  a  hundred  years  old,  w^hich  in  a  very 
sad  sense  is  true  about  very  many  folk  within  the  pale 
of  the  Christian  Church  who  are  seventy-year-old 
babes  still,  and  will  die  so.  Suns  'growing  brighter 
and  brighter  until  the  noonday ! '  Ah  !  there  are  many 
of  us  who  are  a  great  deal  more  like  those  strange 
variable  stars  that  sometimes  burst  out  in  the  heavens 
into  a  great  blaze,  that  brings  them  up  to  the  bright- 
ness of  stars  of  the  first  magnitude,  for  a  day  or 
two ;  and  then  they  dwindle  until  they  become  little 
specks  of  light  that  the  telescope  can  hardly  see. 

And  there  are  hosts  of  us  who  are  instances,  if  not  of 
arrested,  at  any  rate  of  unsymmetrical,  development. 
The  head,  perhaps,  is  cultivated;  the  intellectual 
apprehension  of  Christianity  increases,  while  the 
emotional,  and  the  moral,  and  the  practical  part  of  it 
are  all  neglected.  Or  the  converse  may  be  the  case; 
and  we  may  be  full  of  gush  and  of  good  emotion,  and  of 
fervour  when  we  come  to  worship  or  to  pray,  and  our 
lives  may  not  be  a  hair  the  better  for  it  all.  Or  there 
may  be  a  disproportion  because  of  an  exclusive  atten- 
tion to  conduct  and  the  practical  side  of  Christianity, 


r.l8]  FROM  DAWN  TO  NOON  118 

while  the  rational  side  of  it,  which  should  be  the  basis 
of  all,  and  the  emotional  side  of  it,  which  should  be  the 
driving  power  of  all,  are  comparatively  neglected. 

So,  dear  brethren!  what  with  interruptions,  what 
with  growing  by  fits  and  starts,  and  long,  dreary 
winters  like  the  Arctic  winters,  coming  in  between  the 
two  or  three  days  of  rapid,  and  therefore  brief  and 
unwholesome,  development,  we  must  all,  I  think,  take 
to  heart  the  condemnation  suggested  by  this  text 
when  we  compare  the  reality  of  our  lives  with  the 
divine  intention  concerning  them.  Let  us  ask  our- 
selves, '  Have  I  more  command  over  myself  than  I  had 
twenty  years  ago  ?  Do  I  live  nearer  Jesus  Christ  to- 
day than  I  did  yesterday  ?  Have  I  more  of  His  Spirit 
in  me  ?  Am  I  growing  ?  Would  the  people  that  know 
me  best  say  that  I  am  growing  in  the  grace  and  know- 
ledge of  my  Lord  and  Saviour  ? '  Astronomers  tell  us 
that  there  are  dark  suns,  that  have  burnt  themselves 
out,  and  are  wandering  unseen  through  the  skies.  I 
wonder  if  there  are  any  extinguished  suns  of  that  sort 
listening  to  me  at  this  moment. 

III.  How  the  divine  purpose  concerning  us  may  be 
realised  by  us. 

Now  the  Alpha  and  the  Omega  of  this,  the  one 
means  which  includes  all  other,  is  laid  down  by  Jesus 
Christ  Himself  in  another  metaphor  when  He  said, 
*  Abide  in  Me,  and  I  in  you ;  so  shall  ye  bring  forth 
much  fruit.'  Our  path  will  brighten,  not  because  of 
any  radiance  in  ourselves,  but  in  proportion  as  we 
draw  nearer  and  nearer  to  the  Fountain  of  heavenly 
radiance. 

The  planets  that  move  round  the  sun,  further  away 
than  we  are  on  earth,  get  less  of  its  light  and  heat ; 
and  those  that  circle  around  it  within  the  limits  of 

H 


114  THE  PROVERBS  [ch.iv, 

our  orbit,  get  proportionately  more.  The  nearer  we 
are  to  Him,  the  more  we  shall  shine.  The  sun  shines 
by  its  own  light,  drawn  indeed  from  the  shrinkage  of  its 
mass,  so  that  it  gives  away  its  very  life  in  warming 
and  illuminating  its  subject-worlds.  But  we  shine  only 
by  reflected  light,  and  therefore  the  nearer  we  keep  to 
Him  the  more  shall  we  be  radiant. 

That  keeping  in  touch  with  Jesus  Christ  is  mainly  to 
be  secured  by  the  direction  of  thought,  and  love,  and 
trust  to  Him.  If  we  follow  close  upon  Him  we  shall 
not  walk  in  darkness.  It  is  to  be  secured  and  main- 
tained very  largely  by  what  I  am  afraid  is  much 
neglected  by  Christian  people  of  all  sorts  nowadays, 
and  that  is  the  devotional  use  of  their  Bibles.  That  is 
the  food  by  which  we  grow.  It  is  to  be  secured  and 
maintained  still  more  largely  by  that  which  I,  again, 
am  afraid  is  but  very  imperfectly  attained  to  by  Chris- 
tian people  now,  and  that  is,  the  habit  of  prayer.  It 
is  to  be  secured  and  maintained,  again,  by  the  honest 
conforming  of  our  lives,  day  by  day,  to  the  present 
amount  of  our  knowledge  of  Him  and  of  His  will. 
Whosoever  will  make  all  his  life  the  manifestation  of 
his  belief,  and  turn  all  his  creed  into  principles  of 
action,  will  grow  both  in  the  comprehensiveness,  and 
in  the  depths  of  his  Christian  character.  '  Ye  are  the 
light  in  the  Lord.'  Keep  in  Him,  and  you  will  become 
brighter  and  brighter.  So  shall  we  '  go  from  strength 
to  strength,  till  we  appear  before  God  in  Zion.' 

IV.  Lastly,  what  brighter  rising  will  follow  the  earthly 
setting  ? 

My  second  text  comes  in  here.  Beauty,  intellect, 
power,  goodness ;  all  go  down  into  the  dark.  The 
sun  sets,  and  there  is  left  a  sad  and  fading  glow  in  the 
darkening  pensive  sky,  which  may  recall  the  vanished 


V.18]  FROM  DAWN  TO  NOON  115 

light  for  a  little  while  to  a  few  faithful  hearts, 
but  steadily  passes  into  the  ashen  grey  of  forgetfulness. 

But '  then  shall  the  righteous  blaze  forth  like  the  sun, 
in  their  Heavenly  Father's  kingdom.'  The  momentary 
setting  is  but  apparent.  And  ere  it  is  well  accom- 
plished, a  new  sun  swims  into  the  '  ampler  ether,  the 
diviner  air '  of  that  future  life,  '  and  with  new  spangled 
beams,  flames  in  the  forehead  of  the  morning  sky.' 

The  reason  for  that  inherent  brightness  suggested  in 
our  second  text  is  that  the  soul  of  the  righteous  man 
passes  from  earth  into  a  region  out  of  which  we  'gather 
all  things  that  offend,  and  them  that  do  iniquity.' 
There  are  other  reasons  for  it,  but  that  is  the  one 
which  our  Lord  dwells  on.  Or,  to  put  it  into  modern 
sbientific  language,  environment  corresponds  to  char- 
acter. So,  when  the  clouds  have  rolled  away,  and  no 
more  mists  from  the  undrained  swamps  of  selfishness 
and  sin  and  animal  nature  rise  up  to  hide  the  radiance, 
there  shall  be  a  fuller  flood  of  light  poured  from  the 
re-created  sun. 

That  brightness  thus  promised  has  for  its  highest 
and  most  blessed  character  that  it  is  conformity  to  the 
Lord  Himself.  For,  as  you  may  remember,  the  last 
use  of  this  emblem  that  we  find  in  Scripture  refers  not 
to  the  servant  but  to  the  Master,  whom  His  beloved 
disciple  in  Apocalyptic  vision  saw,  with  His  '  counten- 
ance as  the  sun  shining  in  his  strength.'  Thus  '  we 
shall  be  like  Him,  for  we  shall  see  Him  as  He  is.'  And 
therefore  that  radiance  of  the  sainted  dead  is  progres- 
sive, too.  For  it  has  an  infinite  fulness  to  draw  upon, 
and  the  soul  that  is  joined  to  Jesus  Christ,  and  derives 
its  lustre  from  Him,  cannot  die  until  it  has  outgrown 
Jesus  and  emptied  God.  The  sun  will  one  day  be 
a  dark,  cold  ball.    We  shall  outlast  it, 


116  THE  PROVERBS  [ch.iv. 

But,  brethren,  remember  that  it  is  only  those  who 
here  on  earth  have  progressively  appropriated  the 
brightness  that  Christ  bestovrs  who  have  a  right  to 
reckon  on  that  better  rising.  It  is  contrary  to  all  pro- 
bability to  believe  that  the  passage  from  life  can 
change  the  ingrained  direction  and  set  of  a  man's 
nature.  We  know  nothing  that  warrants  us  in  affirm- 
ing that  death  can  revolutionise  character.  Do  not 
trust  your  future  to  such  a  dim  peradventure.  Here 
is  a  plain  truth.  They  who  on  earth  are  as  '  the  shining 
light  that  shineth  more  and  more  unto  the  perfect 
day,'  shall,  beyond  the  shadow  of  eclipse,  shine  on  as 
the  sun  does,  behind  the  opaque,  intervening  body,  all 
unconscious  of  what  looks  to  mortal  eyes  on  earth  an 
eclipse,  and  'shall  blaze  out  like  the  sun  in  their 
Heavenly  Father's  kingdom.'  For  all  that  we  know 
and  are  taught  by  experience,  religious  and  moral  dis- 
tinctions are  eternal.  *  He  that  is  righteous,  let  him  be 
righteous  still ;  and  he  that  is  filthy,  let  him  be  filthy 
stilL' 


KEEPING  AND  KEPT 

'Keep  thf  heart  with  a,ll  diligenoe;  for  ont  of  it  are  the  issnes  of  life.'— 
Pbovbkbs  iv.  23. 

'Kept  by  the  power  of  God  through  faith  unto  salvation.'— 1  Pktbm  i.  5. 

The  former  of  these  texts  imposes  a  stringent  duty, 
the  latter  promises  divine  help  to  perform  it.  The 
relation  between  them  is  that  between  the  Law  and 
the  Gospel.  The  Law  commands,  the  Gospel  gives 
power  to  obey.  The  Law  pays  no  attention  to  man's 
weakness,  and  points  no  finger  to  the  source  of 
strength.  Its  office  is  to  set  clearly  forth  what  we 
ought  to  be,  not  to  aid  us  in  becoming  so.    'Here  is 


V.  23]  KEEPING  AND  KEPT  117 

your  duty,  do  it '  is,  doubtless,  a  needful  message,  but 
it  is  a  chilly  one,  and  it  may  well  be  doubted  if  it 
ever  rouses  a  soul  to  right  action.  Moralists  have 
hammered  away  at  preaching  self-restraint  and  a  close 
watch  over  the  fountain  of  actions  within  from  the 
beginning,  but  their  exhortations  have  little  effect 
unless  they  can  add  to  their  icy  injunctions  the 
warmth  of  the  promise  of  our  second  text,  and  point 
to  a  divine  Keeper  who  will  make  duty  possible.  We 
muat  be  kept  by  God,  if  we  are  ever  to  succeed  in 
keeping  our  wayward  hearts. 

I.  Without  our  guarding  our  hearts,  no  noble  life 
is  possible. 

The  Old  Testament  psychology  differs  from  our 
popular  allocation  of  certain  faculties  to  bodily  organs. 
We  use  head  and  heart,  roughly  speaking,  as  being 
respectively  the  seats  of  thought  and  of  emotion.  But 
the  Old  Testament  locates  in  the  heart  the  centre  of 
personal  being.  It  is  not  merely  the  home  of  the 
affections,  but  the  seat  of  will,  moral  purpose.  As 
this  text  says,  'the  issues  of  life'  flow  from  it  in  all 
the  multitudinous  variety  of  their  forms.  The  stream 
parts  into  many  heads,  but  it  has  one  fountain.  To 
the  Hebrew  thinkers  the  heart  was  the  indivisible, 
central  unity  which  manifested  itself  in  the  whole 
of  the  outward  life.  '  As  a  man  thinketh  in  his  heart, 
so  is  he.'  The  heart  is  the  man.  And  that  personal 
centre  has  a  moral  character  which  comes  to  light  in, 
and  gives  unity  and  character  to,  all  his  deeds. 

That  solemn  thought  that  every  one  of  us  has  a 
definite  moral  character,  and  that  our  deeds  are  not 
an  accidental  set  of  outward  actions  but  flow  from 
an  inner  fountain,  needs  to  be  driven  home  to  our 
consciences,  for  miost  of  the  actions  of  most  men  are 


118  THE  PROVERBS  [cH.nr. 

done  so  mechaiiically,  and  reflected  on  so  little  by  the 
doers,  that  the  conviction  of  their  having  any  moral 
character  at  all,  or  of  our  incurring  any  responsibility 
for  them,  is  almost  extinct  in  us,  unless  when  some- 
thing startles  conscience  into  protest. 

It  is  this  shrouded  inner  self  to  vrhich  supreme  care 
is  to  be  directed.  All  noble  ethical  teaching  concurs 
in  this — that  a  man  who  seeks  to  be  right  must  keep, 
in  the  sense  both  of  watching  and  of  guarding,  his 
inner  self.  Conduct  is  more  easily  regulated  than 
"haracter — and  less  worth  regulating.  It  avails  little 
to  plant  watchers  on  the  stream  half  way  to  the  sea. 
Control  must  be  exercised  at  the  source,  if  it  is  to  be 
effectual.  The  counsel  of  our  first  text  is  a  common- 
place of  all  wholesome  moral  teaching  since  the  be- 
ginning of  the  world.  The  phrase  '  with  all  diligence ' 
is  literally  'above  all  guarding,'  and  energetically 
expresses  the  supremacy  of  this  keeping.  It  should 
be  the  foremost,  all-pervading  aim  of  every  wise  man 
who  would  not  let  his  life  run  to  waste.  It  may 
be  turned  into  more  modern  language,  meaning  just 
what  this  ancient  sage  meant,  if  we  put  it  as,  '  Guard 
thy  character  with  more  carefulness  than  thou  dost 
thy  most  precious  possessions,  for  it  needs  continual 
watchfulness,  and,  untended,  will  go  to  rack  and  ruin.' 
The  exhortation  finds  a  response  in  every  heart,  and 
may  seem  too  familiar  and  trite  to  bear  dwelling  on, 
but  we  may  be  allowed  to  touch  lightly  on  one  or 
two  of  the  plain  reasons  which  enforce  it  on  every 
man  who  is  not  what  Proverbs  very  unpolitely  calls 
'a  fool.' 

That  guarding  is  plainly  imposed  as  necessary,  by 
the  very  constitution  of  our  manhood.  Our  nature  is 
evidently  not  a  republic,  but  a  monarchy.    It  is  full 


V.  23]  KEEPING  AND  KEPT  119 

of  blind  impulses,  and  hungry  desires,  which  take  no 
heed  of  any  law  but  their  own  satisfaction.  If  the 
reins  are  thrown  on  the  necks  of  these  untamed  horses, 
they  will  drag  the  man  to  destruction.  They  are  only 
safe  when  they  are  curbed  and  bitted,  and  held  well 
in.  Then  there  are  tastes  and  inclinations  which  need 
guidance  and  are  plainly  meant  to  be  subordinate. 
The  will  is  to  govern  all  the  lower  self,  and  conscience 
is  to  govern  the  will.  Unmistakably  there  are  parts 
of  every  man's  nature  which  are  meant  to  serve,  and 
parts  which  are  appointed  to  rule,  and  to  let  the 
servants  usurp  the  place  of  the  rulers  is  to  bring  about 
as  wild  a  confusion  within  as  the  Ecclesiast  lamented 
that  he  had  seen  in  the  anarchic  times  when  he  wrote — 
princes  walking  and  beggars  on  horseback.  As  George 
Herbert  has  it — 

•  Give  not  thy  humours  way  ; 
God  gave  them  to  thee  under  lock  and  key.* 

Then,  further,  that  guarding  is  plainly  imperative, 
because  there  is  an  outer  world  which  appeals  to  our 
needs  and  desires,  irrespective  altogether  of  right  and 
wrong  and  of  the  moral  consequences  of  gratifying 
these.  Put  a  loaf  before  a  starving  man  and  his  im- 
pulse will  be  to  clutch  and  devour  it,  without  regard 
to  whether  it  is  his  or  no.  Show  any  of  our  animal 
propensities  its  appropriate  food,  and  it  asks  no  ques- 
tions as  to  right  or  wrong,  but  is  stirred  to  grasp  its 
natural  food.  And  even  the  higher  and  nobler  parts 
of  our  nature  are  but  too  apt  to  seek  their  gratification 
without  having  the  license  of  conscience  for  doing  so, 
and  sometimes  in  defiance  of  its  plain  prohibitions.  It 
is  never  safe  to  trust  the  guidance  of  life  to  tastes, 
inclinations,  or  to  anything  but  clear  reason,  set  in 


120  THE  PROVERBS  [ch.it. 

motion  by  calm  w^ill,  and  acting  under  the  approbation 
of  '  the  Lord  Chief  Justice,  Conscience.' 

But  again,  seeing  that  the  world  has  more  evil  than 
good  in  it,  the  keeping  of  the  heart  will  always  consist 
rather  in  repelling  solicitations  to  yielding  to  evil.  In 
short,  the  power  and  the  habit  of  sternly  saying  '  No ' 
to  the  whole  crowd  of  tempters  is  always  the  main 
secret  of  a  noble  life.  *  He  that  hath  no  rule  over  his 
own  spirit  is  like  a  city  broken  down  and  without  walls.' 

II.  There  is  no  effectual  guarding  unless  God  guirds. 

The  counsel  in  Proverbs  is  not  mere  toothless  moral 
commonplace,  but  is  associated,  in  the  preceding 
chapter,  with  fatherly  advice  to  '  let  thine  heart  keep 
my  commandments'  and  to  'trust  in  the  Lord  with 
all  thine  heart.'  The  heart  that  so  trusts  will  be  safely 
guarded,  and  only  such  a  heart  will  be.  The  inherent 
weakness  of  all  attempts  at  self -keeping  is  that  keeper 
and  kept  being  one  and  the  same  personality,  the 
more  we  need  to  be  kept  the  less  able  we  are  to 
effect  it.  If  in  the  very  garrison  traitors,  how  shall 
the  fortress  be  defended  ?  If,  then,  we  are  to  exercise 
an  effectual  guard  over  our  characters  and  control 
over  our  natures,  we  must  have  an  outward  standard 
of  right  and  wrong  which  shall  not  be  deflected  by 
variations  in  our  temperature.  We  need  a  fixed  light 
to  steer  towards,  which  is  stable  on  the  stable  shore, 
and  is  not  tossing  up  and  down  on  our  decks.  We 
shall  cleanse  our  way  only  when  we  'take  heed 
thereto,  according  to  Thy  word.'  For  even  God's  vice- 
roy within,  the  sovereign  conscience,  can  be  warped, 
perverted,  silenced,  and  is  not  immune  from  the  spread- 
ing infection  of  evil.  When  it  turns  to  God,  as  a 
mirror  to  the  sun,  it  is  irradiated  and  flashes  bright 
illumination  into  dark  corners,  but  its  power  depends 


V.  23]  KEEPING  AND  KEPT  121 

on  its  being  thus  lit  by  radiations  from  the  very 
Light  of  Life.  And  if  we  are  ever  to  have  a  coercive 
power  over  the  rebellious  powers  within,  we  must  have 
God's  power  breathed  into  us,  giving  grip  and  energy 
to  all  the  good  within,  quickening  every  lofty  desire, 
satisfying  every  aspiration  that  feels  after  Him,  cowing 
all  our  evil  and  being  the  very  self  of  ourselves. 

We  need  an  outward  motive  which  will  stimulate 
and  stir  to  effort.  Our  wills  are  lamed  for  good,  and 
the  world  has  strong  charms  that  appeal  to  us.  And 
if  we  are  not  to  yield  to  these,  there  must  be  some- 
where a  stronger  motive  than  any  that  the  sorceress 
world  has  in  its  stores,  that  shall  constrainingly  draw 
us  to  ways  that,  because  they  tend  upward,  and  yield 
no  pabulum  for  the  lower  self,  are  difficult  for  sluggish 
feet.  To  the  writer  of  this  Book  of  Proverbs  the 
name  of  God  bore  in  it  such  a  motive.  To  us  the 
name  of  Jesus,  which  is  Love,  bears  a  yet  mightier 
appeal,  and  the  motive  w^hich  lies  in  His  death  for  us 
is  strong  enough,  and  it  alone  is  strong  enough,  to 
fire  our  whole  selves  with  enthusiastic,  grateful  love, 
which  will  burn  up  our  sloth,  and  sweep  our  evil  out 
of  our  hearts,  and  make  us  swift  and  glad  to  do  all 
that  may  please  Him.  If  there  must  be  fresh  reinforce- 
ments thrown  into  the  town  of  Mansoul,  as  there  must 
be  if  it  is  not  to  be  captured,  there  is  one  sure  way 
of  securing  these.  Our  second  text  tells  us  whence 
the  relieving  force  must  come.  If  we  are  to  keep  our 
hearts  with  aLll  diligence,  we  must  be  'kept  by  the 
power  of  God,'  and  that  power  is  not  merely  to  make 
diversion  outside  the  beleaguered  fortress  which  may 
force  the  besiegers  to  retreat  and  give  up  their  effort, 
but  is  to  enter  in  and  possess  the  soul  which  it  wills 
to    defend.     It   is   when   the   enemy   sees   that   new 


122  THE  PROVERBS  [ch.iv. 

succours  have,  in  some  mysterious  way,  been  intro- 
duced, that  he  gives  up  his  siege.  It  is  God  in  us 
that  is  our  security. 

III.  There  is  no  keeping  by  God  without  faith. 

Peter  w^as  an  expert  in  such  matters,  for  he  had  had 
a  bitter  experience  to  teach  him  how  soon  and  surely 
self-confidence  became  self-despair.  '  Though  all  should 
forsake  Thee,  yet  will  not  I,'  was  said  but  a  few  hours 
before  he  denied  Jesus.  His  faith  failed,  and  then  the 
divine  guard  that  was  keeping  his  soul  passed  thence, 
and,  left  alone,  he  fell. 

That  divine  Power  is  exerted  for  our  keeping  on 
condition  of  our  trusting  ourselves  to  Him  and  trusting 
Him  for  ourselves.  And  that  condition  is  no  arbitrary 
one,  but  is  prescribed  by  the  very  nature  of  divine 
help  and  of  human  faith.  If  God  could  keep  our 
souls  without  our  trust  in  Him  He  would.  He  does 
so  keep  them  as  far  as  is  possible,  but  for  all  the 
choicer  blessings  of  His  giving,  and  especially  for  that 
of  keeping  us  free  from  the  domination  of  our  lower 
selves,  there  must  be  in  us  faith  if  there  is  to  be  in 
God  help.  The  hand  that  lays  hold  on  God  in  Christ 
must  be  stretched  out  and  must  grasp  His  warm, 
gentle,  and  strong  hand,  if  the  tingling  touch  of  it  is 
to  infuse  strength.  If  the  relieving  force  is  victoriously 
to  enter  our  hearts,  we  must  throw  open  the  gates 
and  welcome  it.  Faith  is  but  the  open  door  for  God's 
entrance.  It  has  no  efficacy  in  itself  any  more  than 
a  door  has,  but  all  its  blessedness  depends  on  what 
it  admits  into  the  hidden  chambers  of  the  heart. 

I  reiterate  what  I  have  tried  to  show  in  these  poor 
words.  There  is  no  noble  life  without  our  guarding 
our  hearts ;  there  is  no  effectual  guarding  unless  God 
guards;  there  is  no  divine  guarding  unless  through 


V  23]  THE  CORDS  OF  SIN  123 

our  faith.  It  is  vain  to  preach  self-governing  and  self- 
keeping.  Unless  we  can  tell  the  beleaguered  heart, 
'The  Lord  is  thy  Keeper;  He  will  keep  thee  from  all 
evil;  He  will  keep  thy  soul,'  we  only  add  one  more 
impossible  command  to  a  man's  burden.  And  we  do 
not  apprehend  nor  experience  the  divine  keeping  in 
its  most  blessed  and  fullest  reality,  unless  we  find  it 
in  Jesus,  who  is  'able  to  keep  us  from  falling,  and 
to  present  us  faultless  before  the  presence  of  His  glory 
with  exceeding  joy.' 


THE  CORDS  OF  SIN 

'  His  own  iniquities  shall  take  the  wicked  himself,  and  he  shall  be  holden  with 
the  cords  of  his  sins.'— Proverbs  v.  22. 

In  Hosea's  tender  picture  of  the  divine  training  of 
Israel  which,  alas !  failed  of  its  effect,  we  read,  '  I 
drew  them  with  cords  of  a  man,'  which  is  further 
explained  as  being  '  with  bands  of  love.'  The  metaphor 
in  the  prophet's  mind  is  probably  that  of  a  child  being 
'  taught  to  go '  and  upheld  in  its  first  tottering  steps  by 
leading-strings.  God  drew  Israel,  though  Israel  did 
not  yield  to  the  drawing.  But  if  these  gentle,  attractive 
influences,  which  ever  are  raying  out  from  Him,  are 
resisted,  another  set  of  cords,  not  now  sustaining  and 
attracting,  but  hampering  and  fettering,  twine  them- 
selves round  the  rebellious  life,  and  the  man  is  like  a 
wild  creature  snared  in  the  hunter's  toils,  enmeshed  in 
a  net,  and  with  its  once  free  limbs  restrained.  The 
choice  is  open  to  us  all,  whether  we  will  let  God  draw 
us  to  Himself  with  the  sweet  manlike  cords  of  His 
educative  and  forbearing  love,  or,  flinging  off  these, 
which  only  foolish  self-will  construes  into  limitations, 


124  THE  PROVERBS  [ch.  v. 

shall  condemn  ourselves  to  be  prisoned  within  the 
narrow  room  of  our  own  sins.  We  may  choose  which 
condition  shall  be  ours,  but  one  or  other  of  them  must 
be  ours.  We  may  either  be  drawn  by  the  silken  cord  of 
God's  love  or  we  may  be  '  holden  by  the  cords '  of  our  sins. 

In  both  clauses  of  our  text  evil  deeds  done  are 
regarded  as  having  a  strange,  solemn  life  apart  from 
the  doer  of  them,  by  which  they  become  influential 
factors  in  his  subsequent  life.  Their  issues  on  others 
may  be  important,  but  their  issues  on  him  are  the  most 
important  of  all.  The  recoil  of  the  gun  on  the  shoulder 
of  him  who  fired  it  is  certain,  whether  the  cartridge 
that  flew  from  its  muzzle  wounded  anything  or  not. 
'  His  own  iniquities  shall  take  the  wicked ' — they  ring 
him  round,  a  grim  company  to  whom  he  has  given  an 
independent  being,  and  who  have  now  '  taken '  him 
prisoner  and  laid  violent  hands  on  him.  A  long  since 
forgotten  novel  told  of  the  fate  of  '  a  modern  Prome- 
theus,' who  made  and  put  life  into  a  dreadful  creature 
in  man's  shape,  that  became  the  curse  of  its  creator's 
life.  That  tragedy  is  repeated  over  and  over  again. 
We  have  not  done  with  our  evil  deeds  when  we  have 
done  them,  but  they,  in  a  very  terrible  sense,  begin  to 
be  when  they  are  done.  We  sow  the  seeds  broadcast, 
and  the  seed  springs  up  dragon's  teeth. 

The  view  of  human  experience  set  forth,  especially 
in  the  second  clause  of  this  text,  directs  our  gaze  into 
dark  places,  into  which  it  is  not  pleasant  to  look,  and 
many  of  you  will  accuse  me  of  preaching  gloomily  if  I 
try  to  turn  a  reflective  eye  inwards  upon  them,  but  no 
one  will  be  able  to  accuse  me  of  not  preaching  truly. 
It  is  impossible  to  enumerate  all  the  cords  that  make 
up  the  net  in  which  our  own  evil  doings  hold  us  meehed, 
but  let  me  point  out  some  of  these. 


T.22]  THE  CORDS  OF  SIN  125 

I.  Our  evil  deeds  become  evil  habits. 

We  all  know  that  anything  once  done  becomes  easier 
to  do  again.  That  is  true  about  both  good  and  bad 
actioni,  but  '  ill  weeds  grow  apace,'  and  it  is  infinitely 
easier  to  form  a  bad  habit  than  a  good  one.  The  young 
shoot  is  green  and  flexible  at  first,  but  it  soon  becomes 
woody  and  grows  high  and  strikes  deep.  We  can  all 
verify  the  statement  of  our  text  by  recalling  the 
tremors  of  conscience,  the  self-disgust,  the  dread  of 
discovery  which  accompanied  the  first  commission  of 
some  evil  deed,  and  the  silence  of  undisturbed,  almost 
unconscioui  facility,  that  accompanied  later  repetitions 
of  it.  Sins  of  sense  and  animal  passion  afford  the  most 
conspicuous  instances  of  this,  but  it  is  by  no  means 
confined  to  these.  We  have  but  to  look  steadily  at  our 
own  lives  to  be  aware  of  the  working  of  this  solemn 
law  in  them,  however  clear  we  may  be  of  the  grosser 
forms  of  evil  deeds.  For  us  all  it  is  true  that  custom 
presses  on  us  *  with  a  weight,  heavy  as  frost  and  deep 
almost  as  lifiB,'  and  that  it  is  as  hard  for  the  Ethiopian 
to  change  his  skin  or  the  leopard  his  spots  as  for  those 
who  *  are  accustomed  to  do  evil '  to  '  do  good.' 

But  experience  teaches  not  only  that  evil  deeds  quickly 
consolidate  into  evil  habits,  but  that  as  the  habit  grips 
us  faster,  the  poor  pleasure  for  the  sake  of  which  the 
acts  are  done  diminishes.  The  zest  which  partially 
concealed  the  bitter  taste  of  the  once  eagerly  swallowed 
morsel  is  all  but  gone,  but  the  morsel  is  still  sought 
and  swallowed.  Impulses  wax  as  motives  wane,  the 
victim  is  like  an  ox  tempted  on  the  road  to  the 
slaughter-house  at  first  by  succulent  fodder  held  before 
it,  and  at  last  driven  into  it  by  pricking  goads  and 
heavy  blows.  Many  a  man  is  so  completely  wrapped 
in  the  net  which  his  own  evil  deeds  have  made  for  him, 


126  THE  PROVERBS  [ch.v. 

that  he  commits  the  sin  once  more,  not  because  he 
finds  any  pleasure  in  it,  but  for  no  better  reason  than 
that  he  has  already  committed  it  often,  and  the  habit 
is  his  master. 

There  are  many  forms  of  evil  which  compel  us  to 
repeat  them  for  other  reasons  than  the  force  of  habit. 
For  instance,  a  fraudulent  book-keeper  has  to  go  on 
making  false  entries  in  his  employer's  books  in  order 
to  hide  his  peculations.  Whoever  steps  on  to  the 
steeply  sloping  road  to  which  self-pleasing  invites  us, 
soon  finds  that  he  is  on  an  inclined  plane  well  greased, 
and  that  compulsion  is  on  him  to  go  on,  though  he 
may  recoil  from  the  descent,  and  be  shudderingly 
aware  of  what  the  end  must  be.  Let  no  man  say, '  I 
will  do  this  doubtful  thing  once  only,  and  never  again.' 
Sin  is  like  an  octopus,  and  if  the  loathly  thing  gets  the 
tip  of  one  slender  filament  round  a  man,  it  will  envelop 
him  altogether  and  drag  him  down  to  the  cruel  beak. 

Let  us  then  remember  how  swiftly  deeds  become 
habits,  and  how  the  fetters,  which  were  silken  at  first, 
rapidly  are  exchanged  for  iron  chains,  and  how  the 
craving  increases  as  fast  as  the  pleasure  from  gratifying 
it  diminishes.  Let  us  remember  that  there  are  many 
kinds  of  evil  which  seem  to  force  their  own  repetition, 
in  order  to  escape  their  consequences  and  to  hide  the 
sin.  Let  us  remember  that  no  man  can  venture  to  say, 
'This  once  only  will  I  do  this  thing.'  Let  us  remember 
that  acts  become  habits  with  dreadful  swiftness,  and 
let  us  beware  that  we  do  not  forge  chains  of  darkness 
for  ourselves  out  of  our  own  godless  deeds. 

II.  Our  evil  deeds  imprison  us  for  good. 

The  tragedy  of  human  life  is  that  we  weave  for 
ourselves  manacles  that  fetter  us  from  following  and 
securing  the  one  good  for  which  we  are  made.    Our 


V.22]  THE  CORDS  OF  SIN  127 

evil  past  holds  us  in  a  firm  grip.  The  cords  which 
confine  our  limbs  are  of  our  own  spinning.  What  but 
ourselves  is  the  reason  why  so  many  of  us  do  not  yield 
to  God's  merciful  drawings  of  us  to  Himself?  We 
have  riveted  the  chains  and  twined  the  net  that  holds 
us  captive,  by  our  own  acts.  It  is  we  ourselves  who 
have  paralysed  our  wills,  so  that  we  see  the  light  of 
God  but  as  a  faint  gleam  far  away,  and  dare  not  move 
to  follow  the  gleam.  It  is  we  who  have  smothered  or 
silenced  our  conscience  and  perverted  our  tastes,  and 
done  violence  to  all  in  us  that  '  thirsteth  for  God,  even 
the  living  God.'  Alas  !  how  many  of  us  have  let  some 
strong  evil  habit  gain  such  a  grip  of  us  that  it  has 
overborne  our  higher  impulses,  and  silenced  the  voice 
within  us  that  cries  out  for  the  living  God !  We  are 
kept  back  from  Him  by  our  worse  selves,  and  whoever 
lets  that  which  is  lowest  in  him  keep  him  from  follow- 
ing after  God,  who  is  his  'being's  end  and  aim,'  is 
caught  and  prisoned  by  the  cords  woven  and  knitted 
out  of  his  sins.  Are  there  none  of  us  who  know,  w^hen 
they  are  honest  with  themselves,  that  they  would  have 
been  true  Christians  long  since,  had  it  not  been  for  one 
darling  evil  that  they  cannot  make  up  their  minds  to 
cast  off?  Wills  disabled  from  strongly  willing  the 
good,  consciences  silenced  as  when  the  tongue  is  taken 
out  of  a  bell-buoy  on  a  shoal,  tastes  perverted  and  set 
seeking  amid  the  transitory  treasures  of  earth  for 
what  God  only  can  give  them,  these  are  the  '  cords '  out 
of  which  are  knotted  the  nets  that  hold  so  many  of  us 
captive,  and  hinder  our  feet  from  following  after  God, 
even  the  living  God,  in  following  and  possessing  whom 
is  the  only  liberty  of  soul,  the  one  real  joy  of  life. 

III.  Our  evil  deeds  work  their  own  punishment. 

I  do  not  venture  to  speak  of  the  issues  beyond  the 


128  THE  PROVERBS  tcH.v. 

grave.  It  is  not  for  a  man  to  press  these  on  his 
brethren.  But  even  from  the  standpoint  of  this  Book 
of  Proverbs,  it  is  certain  that  'the  righteous  shall  be 
recompensed  in  the  earth,  much  more  the  wicked  and 
the  sinner.'  Probably  it  was  the  earthly  consequences 
of  wrongdoing  that  were  in  the  mind  of  the  proverb- 
maker.  And  we  are  not  to  let  our  Christian  enlighten- 
ment as  to  the  future  rob  us  of  the  certainty,  written 
large  on  human  life  here  and  now,  that  with  whatever 
apparent  exceptions  in  regard  to  prosperous  sin  and 
tried  righteousness,  it  is  yet  true  that  'every  trans- 
gression and  disobedience  receives  its  just  recompense 
of  reward.'  Life  is  full  of  consequences  of  evil-doing. 
Even  here  and  now  we  reap  as  we  have  sown.  Every 
sin  is  a  mistake,  even  if  we  confine  our  view  to  the 
consequences  sought  for  in  this  life  by  it,  and  the 
consequences  actually  encountered.  *A  rogue  is  a 
roundabout  fool.'  True,  we  believe  that  there  is  a 
future  reaping  so  complete  that  it  makes  the  partial 
harvests  gathered  here  seem  of  small  account.  But 
the  framer  of  this  proverb,  who  had  little  knowledge 
of  that  future,  had  seen  enough  in  the  meditative 
survey  of  this  present  to  make  him  sure  that  the 
consequences  of  evil-doing  were  certain,  and  in  a  very 
true  sense,  penal.  And  leaving  out  of  sight  all  that 
lies  in  the  dark  beyond,  surely  if  we  sum  up  the  lamed 
aspirations,  the  perverted  tastes,  the  ossifying  of  noble 
emotions,  the  destruction  of  the  balance  of  the  nature, 
the  blinding  of  the  eye  of  the  soul,  the  lowering  and 
narrowing  of  the  whole  nature,  and  many  another 
wound  to  the  best  in  man  that  come  as  the  sure  issue 
of  evil  deeds,  we  do  not  need  to  doubt  that  every  sinful 
man  is  miserably  'holden  with  the  cords  of  his  sin.' 
Life  is  the  time  for  sowing,  but  it  is  a  time  for  reaping 


V.22]  THE  CORDS  OF  SIN  129 

too,  and  we  do  not  need  to  wait  for  death  to  experience 
the  truth  of  the  solemn  warning  that  '  he  who  soweth 
to  the  flesh  shall  of  the  flesh  reap  corruption.'  Let  us, 
then,  do  no  deeds  without  asking  ourselres,  What  will 
the  harvest  be?  and  if  from  any  deeds  that  we  have 
done  we  have  to  reap  sorrow  or  inward  darkness,  let 
us  be  thankful  that  by  experience  our  Father  is  teach- 
ing us  how  bitter  as  well  as  evil  a  thing  it  is  to  forsake 
Him,  and  cast  off  His  fear  from  our  wayward  spirits. 

IV.  The  cords  can  be  loosened. 

Bitter  experience  teaches  that  the  imprisoning  net 
clings  too  tightly  to  be  stripped  from  our  limbs  by  our 
own  efforts.  Nay  rather,  the  net  and  the  captive  are 
one,  and  he  who  tries  to  cast  off  the  oppression  which 
hinders  him  from  following  that  which  is  good  is 
trying  to  cast  off  himself.  The  desperate  problem  that 
fronts  every  effort  at  self-emendation  has  two  bristling 
impossibilities  in  it :  one,  how  to  annihilate  the  past ; 
one,  how  to  extirpate  the  evil  that  is  part  of  my  very 
self,  and  yet  to  keep  the  self  entire.  The  very  terms 
of  the  problem  show  it  to  be  insoluble,  and  the  climax 
of  all  honest  efforts  at  making  a  clean  thing  of  an 
unclean  by  means  within  reach  of  the  unclean  thing 
itself,  is  the  despairing  cry,  •  O  wretched  man  that  I 
am !  who  shall  deliver  me  out  of  the  body  of  this 
death  ? ' 

But  to  men  writhing  in  the  grip  of  a  sinful  past,  or 
paralysed  beyond  writhing,  and  indifferent,  because 
hopeless,  or  because  they  have  come  to  like  their 
captivity,  comes  one  whose  name  is  'the  Breaker,' 
whose  mission  it  is  to  proclaim  liberty  to  the  captives, 
and  whose  hand  laid  on  the  cords  that  bind  a  soul, 
causes  them  to  drop  harmless  from  the  limbs  and  sets 
the  bondsman  free.    Many  tongues  praise  Jesus  for 

I 


130  THE  PROVERBS  [ch.viii. 

many  great  gifts,  but  His  proper  work,  and  that 
peculiar  to  Himself  alone,  is  His  work  on  the  sin  and 
the  sins  of  the  world.  He  deals  with  that  which  no 
man  can  deal  with  for  himself  or  by  his  own  power. 
He  can  cancel  our  past,  so  that  it  shall  not  govern  our 
future.  He  can  give  new  power  to  fight  the  old  habits. 
He  can  give  a  new  life  which  owes  nothing  to  the 
former  self,  and  is  free  from  taint  from  it.  He  can 
break  the  entail  of  sin,  the  '  law  of  the  spirit  of  life  in 
Christ  Jesus'  can  make  any  of  us,  even  him  who  is 
most  tied  and  bound  by  the  chain  of  his  sins,  'free 
from  the  law  of  sin  and  death.'  We  cannot  break  the 
chains  that  fetter  us,  and  our  own  struggles,  like  the 
plungings  of  a  wild  beast  caught  in  the  toils,  but  draw 
the  bonds  tighter.  But  the  chains  that  cannot  be 
broken  can  be  melted,  and  it  may  befall  each  of  us  as  it 
befell  the  three  Hebrews  in  the  furnace,  when  the  king 
*  was  astonished '  and  asked,  '  Did  not  we  cast  three  men 
bound  into  the  midst  of  the  fire?'  and  wonderingly 
declared,  *  Lo,  I  see  four  men  loose  walking  in  the  midst 
of  the  fire,  and  the  aspect  of  the  fourth  is  like  a  son  of 
the  gods.' 

WISDOM'S  GIFT 

'That  I  may  cause  those  that  love  me  to  inherit  substance.'— Provbrbs  viii.  81. 

The  word  here  rendered  'substance'  is  peculiar.  In- 
deed, it  is  used  in  a  unique  construction  in  this  pass- 
age. It  means  'being'  or  'existence,'  and  seems  to 
have  been  laid  hold  of  by  the  Hebrew  thinkers,  from 
whom  the  books  commonly  called  '  the  Wisdom  Books' 
come,  as  one  of  their  almost  technical  expressions. 
'Substance'  may  be  used  in  our  translation  in  its  philo- 


V.21]  WISDOMS  GIFT  131 

sopliical  meaning  as  the  supposed  reality  underlying 
appearances,  but  if  we  observe  that  in  the  parallel 
following  clause  we  find  'treasures,'  it  seems  more 
likely  that  in  the  text,  it  is  to  be  taken  in  its  secondary, 
and  much  debased  meaning  of  wealth,  material  posses- 
sions. But  the  prize  held  out  here  to  the  lovers  of 
heavenly  wisdom  is  much  more  than  worldly  good.  In 
deepest  truth,  the  being  which  is  theirs  is  God  Himself. 
They  who  love  and  seek  the  wisdom  of  this  book 
Ijossess  Him,  and  in  possessing  Him  become  possessed 
of  their  own  true  being.  They  are  owners  and  lords 
of  themselves,  and  have  in  their  hearts  a  fountain  of 
life,  because  they  have  God  dwelling  with  and  in  them. 

I.  The  quest  which  always  finds. 

'  Those  who  love  wisdom '  might  be  a  Hebrew  trans- 
lation of  '  philosopher,'  and  possibly  the  Jewish  teachers 
of  wisdom  were  influenced  by  Greece,  but  their  con- 
ception of  wisdom  has  a  deeper  source  than  the  Greek 
had,  and  what  they  meant  by  loving  it  was  a  widely 
different  attitude  of  mind  and  heart  from  that  of  the 
Greek  philosopher.  It  could  never  be  said  of  the 
disciples  of  a  Plato  that  their  quest  was  sure  to  end 
in  finding  what  they  sought.  Many  a  man  then,  and 
many  a  man  since,  and  many  a  man  to  -  day,  has 
'  followed  knowledge,  like  a  sinking  star,'  and  has  only 
caught  a  glimmer  of  a  far-off  and  dubious  light.  There 
is  only  one  search  which  is  certain  always  to  find  what 
it  seeks,  and  that  is  the  search  which  knows  where  the 
object  of  it  is,  and  seeks  not  as  for  something  the 
locality  of  which  is  unknown,  but  as  for  that  which 
the  place  of  which  is  certain.  The  manifold  voices  of 
human  aims  cry,  '  Who  will  show  us  any  good  ? '  The 
seeker  who  is  sure  to  find  is  he  who  prays,  '  Lord,  lift 
Thou  up  the  light  of  Thy  countenance  upon  us.'    The 


132  THE  PROVERBS  [ch.tiii. 

heart  that  truly  and  supremely  affects  God  is  never 
condemned  to  seek  in  vain.  The  Wisdom  of  this  book 
herself  is  presented  as  proclaiming,  '  They  that  seek 
me  earnestly  shall  find  me,'  and  humble  souls  in  every 
age  since  then  have  set  to  their  seal  that  the  word  is 
true  to  their  experience.  For  there  are  two  seekers  in 
every  such  case,  God  and  man.  '  The  Father  seeketh 
such  to  worship  Him,'  and  His  love  goes  through  the 
world,  yearning  and  searching  for  hearts  that  will  turn 
to  Him.  The  shepherd  seeks  for  the  lost  sheep,  and 
lays  it  on  his  shoulders  to  bear  it  back  to  the  fold. 
Jesus  Christ  is  the  incarnation  of  the  seeking  love  of 
God.  And  the  human  seeker  finds  God,  or  rather  is 
found  by  God,  for  no  aspiration  after  Him  is  vain,  no 
longing  unresponded  to,  no  effort  to  find  Him  unre- 
sponded  to.  We  have  as  much  of  God  as  we  wish,  as 
much  as  our  desires  have  fitted  us  to  receive.  The  all- 
penetrating  atmosphere  enters  every  chink  open  to  it, 
and  no  seeking  soul  has  ever  had  to  say,  '  I  sought  Him 
but  found  Him  not.' 

Is  there  any  other  quest  of  which  the  same  can  be 
said?  Are  not  all  paths  of  human  effort  strewed  with 
the  skeletons  of  men  who  have  fretted  and  toiled  away 
their  lives  in  vain  attempts  to  grasp  aims  that  have 
eluded  their  grip  ?  Do  we  not  all  know  the  sickness  of 
disappointed  effort,  or  the  sadder  sickness  of  successful 
effort,  which  has  secured  the  apparent  good  and  found 
it  not  so  good  after  all  ?  The  Christian  life  is,  amid  all 
the  failures  of  human  effort,  the  only  life  in  which  the 
seeking  after  good  is  but  a  little  less  blessed  than  the 
finding  of  it  is,  and  in  which  it  is  always  true  that  •  h« 
that  seeketh  findeth.'  Nor  does  such  finding  deaden 
the  spirit  of  seeking,  for  in  every  finding  there  is  a 
fresh  discovery  of  new  depths  in  God,  and  a  consequent 


7.21]  WISDOM'S  GIFT  133 

quickening  of  desire  to  press  further  into  the  abyss  of 
His  Being,  so  that  aspiration  and  fruition  ever  beget 
each  other,  and  the  upward,  Godward  progress  of  the 
soul  is  eternal. 

II.  The  finding  that  is  always  blessed. 

We  have  seen  that  being  is  the  gift  promised  to  the 
lovers  of  wisdom,  and  that  the  promise  may  either  be 
referred  to  the  possession  of  God,  who  is  the  fountain 
of  all  being,  or  to  the  true  possession  of  ourselves, 
which  is  a  consequence  of  our  possession  of  Him.  In 
either  aspect,  that  possession  is  blessedness.  If  we 
have  God,  we  have  real  life.  We  truly  own  ourselves 
when  we  have  God.  We  really  live  when  God  liyes  in 
us,  the  life  of  our  lives.  We  are  ourselves,  when  we 
have  ceased  to  be  ourselves,  and  have  taken  God  to  be 
the  Self  of  ourselves. 

Such  a  life,  God  -  possessing,  brings  the  one  good 
which  corresponds  to  our  whole  nature.  All  other 
good  is  fragmentary,  and  being  fragmentary  is  inade- 
quate, as  men's  restless  search  after  various  forms  of 
good  but  too  sadly  proves.  Why  does  the  merchant- 
man wander  over  sea  and  land  seeking  for  many  goodly 
pearls  ?  Because  he  has  not  found  one  of  great  price, 
but  tries  to  make  up  by  their  number  for  the  insuffici- 
ency of  each.  But  the  soul  is  made,  not  to  find  its 
wealth  in  the  manifold  but  in  the  one,  and  no  aggrega- 
tion of  incompletenesses  will  make  up  completeness, 
nor  any  number  of  partial  satisfactions  of  this  and  the 
other  appetite  or  desire  make  a  man  feel  that  he  has 
enough  and  more  than  enough.  We  must  have  all  good 
in  one  Person,  if  we  are  ever  to  know  the  rest  of  full 
satisfaction.  It  will  be  fatal  to  our  blessedness  if  we 
have  to  resort  to  a  hundred  diflPerent  sources  for 
different  supplies.    The  true  blessedness  is  simple  and 


134  THE  PROVERBS  [ch.viii. 

yet  infinitely  complex,  for  it  comes  from  possessing  the 
one  Person  in  whom  dwell  for  us  all  forms  of  good, 
whether  good  be  understood  as  intellectual  or  moral 
or  emotional.  That  which  cannot  be  everything  to 
the  soul  that  seeks  is  scarcely  worth  the  seeking,  and 
certainly  is  not  wisely  proposed  as  the  object  of  a  life's 
search,  for  such  a  life  will  be  a  failure  if  it  fails  to  find 
its  object,  and  scarcely  less  tragically,  though  perhaps 
less  conspicuously,  a  failure  if  it  finds  it.  All  other 
good  is  but  apparent ;  God  is  the  one  real  object  that 
meets  all  man's  desires  and  needs,  and  makes  him 
blessed  with  real  blessedness,  and  fills  the  cup  of  life 
with  the  draught  that  slakes  thirst  and  satisfies  the 
thirstiest. 

III.  The  blessedness  that  always  lasts. 

He  who  finds  God,  as  every  one  of  us  may  find  Him, 
in  Christ,  has  found  a  Good  that  cannot  change,  pass, 
or  grow  stale.  His  blessedness  will  always  last,  as  long 
as  he  keeps  fast  hold  of  that  which  he  has,  and  lets  no 
man  take  his  crown. 

For  the  Christian's  good  is  the  only  one  that  does  not 
intend  to  grow  old  and  pall.  We  can  never  exhaust 
God.  We  need  never  grow  weary  of  Him.  Possession 
robs  other  wealth  of  its  glamour,  and  other  pleasures 
of  their  poignant  sweetness.  We  grow  weary  of  most 
good  things,  and  those  which  we  have  long  had,  we 
generally  find  get  somewhat  faded  and  stale.  Habit 
is  a  fatal  enemy  to  enjoyment.  But  it  only  adds  to  the 
joy  which  springs  from  the  possession  of  God  in  Christ. 
Swedenborg  said  that  the  oldest  angels  lookthe  youngest, 
and  they  who  have  longest  experience  of  the  joy  of 
fellowship  with  God  are  they  who  enjoy  each  instance 
of  it  most.  We  can  never  drink  the  chalice  of  His  love 
to  the  di-egs,  and  it  will  be  fresh  and  sparkling  as  long 


V.  21]  WISDOM'S  GIFT  185 

as  we  have  lips  that  can  absorb  it.  He  keeps  the  good 
wine  till  the  last. 

The  Christian's  good  is  the  only  good  which  cannot 
be  taken  away.  Loss  and  change  beggars  the  million- 
aire sometimes,  and  the  possibility  of  loss  shadows  all 
earthly  good  with  pale  foreboding.  Everything  that 
is  outside  the  substance  of  the  soul  can  be  withdrawn, 
but  the  possession  of  God  in  Christ  is  so  intimate  and 
inward,  so  interwoven  with  the  very  deepest  roots  of 
the  Christian's  personal  being,  that  it  cannot  be  taken 
out  from  these  by  any  shocks  of  time  or  change.  There 
is  but  one  hand  that  can  end  that  possession  and  that 
is  his  own.  He  can  withdraw  himself  from  God,  by 
giving  himself  over  to  sin  and  the  world.  He  can 
empty  the  shrine  and  compel  the  indwelling  deity  to 
say,  as  the  legend  told  was  heard  in  the  Temple  the 
night  before  Roman  soldiers  desecrated  the  Holy  of 
Holies:  Let  us  depart.  But  besides  himself,  'neither 
things  present,  nor  things  to  come,  nor  height  nor 
depth,  nor  any  other  creature '  has  power  to  take  away 
that  faithful  God  to  whom  a  poor  soul  clings,  and  in 
whom  whoso  thus  clings  finds  its  unchangeable  good. 

The  Christian's  good  is  the  only  one  from  which  we 
cannot  be  taken.  A  grim  psalm  paints  for  us  the  life 
and  end  of  men  '  who  trust  in  the  multitude  of  their 
possessions,'  and  whose  '  inward  thought  is  that  they 
have  founded  families  that  will  last.'  It  tells  how  '  this 
their  way  is  folly,'  and  yet  is  approved  with  acclama- 
tions by  the  crowd.  It  lets  us  see  the  founder  of  a 
family,  the  possessor  of  broad  acres,  going  down  to  the 
grave,  carrying  nothing  away,  stripped  of  his  glory  and 
with  Death  for  his  shepherd,  who  has  driven  his  flock 
from  pleasant  pastures  here  into  the  dreariness  of 
Sheol.    But  that  shepherd  has  a  double  office.    Some 


136  THE  PROVERBS  [ch.viii. 

he  separates  from  all  their  possessions,  hopes,  and  joys. 
Some  he,  stern  though  his  aspect  and  harsh  though  his 
guidance,  leads  up  to  the  green  pastures  of  God,  and  as 
the  last  messenger  of  the  love  of  God  in  Christ,  unites 
the  souls  that  found  God  amid  the  distractions  of  earth 
with  the  God  whom  they  will  know  better  and  possess 
more  fully  and  blessedly,  amid  the  unending  felicities 
and  progressive  blessednesses  of  Heaven. 


WISDOM  AND  CHRIST 

'  Then  I  was  by  him,  as  one  brought  up  with  him :  and  I  was  daily  his  delight, 
rejoicing  always  before  him ;  31.  Rejoicing  in  the  habitable  part  of  his  earth ; 
and  my  delights  were  with  the  sons  of  men.'— Proverbs  viii.  30,  31. 

There  is  a  singular  difference  between  the  two  por- 
tions of  this  Book  of  Proverbs.  The  bulk  of  it,  beginning 
with  chapter  x.,  contains  a  collection  of  isolated  maxims 
which  may  be  described  as  the  product  of  sanctified 
common  sense.  They  are  shrewd  and  homely,  but  not 
remarkably  spiritual  or  elevated.  To  these  is  prefixed 
this  introductory  portion,  continuous,  lofty  in  style, 
and  in  its  personification  of  divine  wisdom,  rising  to 
great  sublimity  both  of  thought  and  of  expression.  It 
seems  as  if  the  main  body  of  the  book  had  been  fitted 
with  an  introduction  by  another  hand  than  that  of  the 
compilers  of  the  various  sets  of  proverbial  sayings.  It 
is  apparently  due  to  an  intellectual  movement,  perhaps 
not  uninfluenced  by  Greek  thought,  and  chronologically 
the  latest  of  the  elements  composing  the  Old  Testament 
scriptures.  In  place  of  the  lyric  fervour  of  prophets, 
and  the  devout  intuition  of  psalmists,  we  have  the 
praise  of  Wisdom.  But  that  noble  portrait  is  no  copy 
of  the  Greek  conception,  but  contains  features  peculiar 
to  itself.    She  stands  opposed  to  blatant,  meretricious 


V8.30,3i]      WISDOM  AND  CHRIST  137 

Folly,  and  seeks  to  draw  men  to  herself  by  lofty 
motives  and  offering  pure  delights.  She  is  not  a  person, 
but  she  is  a  personification  of  an  aspect  of  the  divine 
nature,  and  seeing  that  she  is  held  forth  as  willing  to 
bestow  herself  on  men,  that  queenly  figure  shadows 
the  great  truth  of  God's  self-communication  as  being 
the  end  and  climax  of  all  His  revelation. 

We  are  on  the  wrong  tack  when  we  look  for  more  or 
less  complete  resemblances  between  the  'Wisdom'  of 
Proverbs  and  the  'Sophia'  of  Greek  thinkers.  It  is 
much  rather  an  anticipation,  imperfect  but  real,  of 
Jesus  than  a  pale  reflection  of  Greek  thought.  The 
way  for  the  perfect  revelation  of  God  in  the  incarnation 
was  prepared  by  prophet  and  psalmist.  Was  it  not  also 
prepared  by  this  vision  of  a  Wisdom  which  was  always 
with  God,  and  yet  had  its  delights  with  the  sons  of  men, 
and  whilst '  rejoicing  always  before  Him,'  yet  rejoiced 
in  the  habitable  parts  of  the  earth  ? 

Let  us  then  look,  however  imperfect  our  gaze  may 
be,  at  the  self-revelation  in  Proverbs  of  the  personified 
divine  Wisdom,  and  compare  it  with  the  revelation  of 
the  iijcarnate  divine  Word. 

I.  The  Self -revelation  of  Wisdom. 

The  words  translated  in  Authorised  Version,  *  As  one 
brought  up  with  him,'  are  rendered  in  Revised  Version, 
'  as  a  master  workman,'  and  seem  intended  to  represent 
Wisdom — that  is,  of  course,  the  divine  Wisdom — as 
having  been  God's  agent  in  the  creative  act.  In  the 
preceding  context,  she  triumphantly  proclaims  her 
existence  before  His  '  works  of  old,'  and  that  she  was 
with  God,  '  or  ever  the  earth  was.'  Before  the  ever- 
lasting mountains  she  was,  before  fountains  flashed  in 
the  light  and  refreshed  the  earth,  her  waters  flowed. 
But  that  presence  is  not  all.  Wisdom  was  the  divine 


188  THE  PROVERBS  [cH.vm. 

agent  in  creation.  That  thought  goes  beyond  the 
ancient  one:  *He  spake  and  it  was  done.'  Genesis 
regards  the  divine  command  as  the  cause  of  creatural 
being.  God  said,  '  Let  there  be — and  there  was ' :  the 
forthputting  of  His  will  was  the  impulse  to  which 
creatures  sprang  into  existence  at  response.  That  is  a 
great  thought,  but  the  meditative  thinker  in  our  text 
has  pondered  over  the  facts  of  creation,  and  notwith- 
standing all  their  apparent  incompletenesses  and 
errors,  has  risen  to  the  conclusion  that  they  can  all  be 
vindicated  as  'very  good.'  To  him,  this  wonderful 
universe  is  not  only  the  product  of  a  sovereign  will, 
but  of  one  guided  in  its  operations  by  all  -  seeing 
Wisdom. 

Then  the  relation  of  this  divine  Wisdom  to  God  is 
represented  as  being  a  continual  delight  and  a  child- 
like rejoicing  in  Him,  or  as  the  word  literally  means,  a 
•  sporting '  in  Him.  Whatever  energy  of  creative  action 
is  suggested  by  the  preceding  figure  of  a  *  master 
workman,'  that  energy  had  no  effort.  To  the  divine 
Wisdom  creation  was  an  easy  task.  She  was  not  so 
occupied  with  it  as  to  interrupt  her  delight  in  con- 
templating God,  and  her  task  gave  her  infinite  satisfac- 
tion, for  she  'rejoiced  always'  before  Him,  and  she 
rejoiced  in  His  habitable  earth.  The  writer  does  not 
shrink  from  ascribing  to  the  agent  of  creation  some- 
thing like  the  glow  of  satisfaction  that  we  feel  over  a 
piece  of  well-done  work,  the  poet's  or  the  painter's 
rapture  as  he  sees  his  thoughts  bodied  forth  in  melody 
or  glowing  on  canvas. 

But  there  is  a  greater  thought  than  these  here,  for 
the  writer  adds,  *  and  my  delight  was  with  the  sons  of 
men.'  It  is  noteworthy  that  the  same  word  is  used  in  the 
preceding  verse.    The '  delight  of  the  heavenly  Wisdom 


vs.  30, 31]      WISDOM  AND  CHRIST  139 

in  God '  is  not  unlike  that  directed  to  man.  '  The  sons 
of  men '  are  the  last,  noblest  work  of  Creation,  and  on 
them,  as  the  shining  apex,  her  delight  settles.  The 
words  describe  not  only  what  was  true  when  man 
came  into  being,  as  the  utmost  possible  climax  of 
creatural  excellence,  but  are  the  revelation  of  what  still 
remains  true. 

One  cannot  but  feel  how  in  all  this  most  striking 
disclosure  of  the  depths  of  God,  a  deeper  mystery  is  on 
the  verge  of  revelation.  There  is  here,  as  we  have 
said,  a  personification,  but  there  seems  to  be  a  Person 
shining  through,  or  dimly  discerned  moving  behind, 
the  curtain.  Wisdom  is  the  agent  of  creation.  She 
creates  with  ease,  and  in  creating  delights  in  God  as 
well  as  in  her  work,  which  calls  for  no  effort  in  doing, 
and  done,  is  all  very  good.  She  delights  most  of  all  in 
the  sons  of  men,  and  that  delight  is  permanent.  Does 
not  this  unknown  Jewish  thinker,  too,  belong,  as  well 
as  prophet  and  psalmist,  to  those  who  went  before 
crying,  Hosanna  to  Him  that  cometh  in  the  name  of 
the  Lord  ?  Let  us  turn  to  the  New  Testament  and  find 
an  answer  to  the  question. 

II.  The  higher  revelation  of  the  divine  Word. 

There  can  be  no  doubt  that  the  New  Testament  is 
committed  to  the  teaching  that  the  Eternal  Word  of 
God,  who  was  incarnate  in  Jesus,  was  the  agent  of 
creation.  John,  in  his  profound  prologue  to  the  Gospel, 
utters  the  deepest  truths  in  brief  sentences  of  mono- 
syllables, and  utters  them  without  a  trace  of  feeling 
that  they  needed  proof.  To  him  they  are  axiomatic 
and  self  evident.  '  All  things  were  made  by  Him.'  The 
words  are  the  words  of  a  child;  the  thought  takes  a 
flight  beyond  the  furthest  reach  of  the  mind  of  men. 
Paul,  too,  adds  his  Amen  when  he  proclaims  that '  All 


140  THE  PROVERBS  [ch.viii. 

things  have  been  created  through  Him  and  unto  Him, 
and  He  is  before  all  things,  and  in  Him  all  things  hold 
together.'  The  writer  of  Hebrews  declares  a  Son 
'  through  whom  also  He  made  the  worlds,  and  who 
upholds  all  things  by  the  word  of  His  power,'  and  does 
not  scruple  at  transferring  to  Jesus  the  grand  poetry 
of  the  Psalmist  who  hymned  'Thou,  Lord,  in  the 
beginning,  hast  laid  the  foundation  of  the  earth,  and 
the  heavens  are  the  work  of  Thy  hands.'  We  speak 
of  things  too  deep  for  us  when  we  speak  of  persons  in 
the  Godhead,  but  yet  we  know  that  the  Eternal  Word, 
which  was  from  the  beginning,  was  made  flesh  and 
dwelt  among  us.  The  personified  Wisdom  of  Proverbs 
is  the  personal  Word  of  John's  prologue.  John  almost 
quotes  the  former  when  he  says  '  the  same  was  in  the 
beginning  with  God,'  for  his  word  recalls  the  grand 
declaration,  'The  Lord  possessed  me  in  the  beginning 
of  His  way  ...  I  was  set  up  in  the  beginning  or  ever 
the  earth  was.'  Then  there  are  two  beginnings,  one 
lost  in  the  depths  of  timeless  being,  one,  the  commence- 
ment of  creative  activity,  and  that  Word  was  with 
God  in  the  remotest,  as  in  the  nearer,  beginning. 

But  the  ancient  vision  of  the  Jewish  thinker  antici- 
pated the  perfect  revelation  of  the  New  Testament 
still  further,  in  its  thought  of  an  unbroken  communion 
between  the  personified  Wisdom  and  God.  That  dim 
thought  of  perfect  communion  and  interchange  of 
delights  flashes  into  wondrous  clearness  when  we  think 
of  Him  who  spake  of  '  the  glory  which  I  had  with  Thee 
before  the  foundation  of  the  world,'  and  calmly 
declared  :  '  Thou  lovedst  me  before  the  foundation  of 
the  world.'  Into  that  depth  of  mutual  love  we  cannot 
look,  and  our  eyes  are  too  dim-sighted  to  bear  the 
blaze  of  that  flashing  interchange  of  glory,  but  we  shall 


Ys.  30,31]      WISDOM  AND  CHRIST  141 

rob  the  earthly  life  of  Jesus  of  its  pathos  and  saving 
power,  if  we  do  not  recognise  that  in  Him  the  personi- 
fication of  Proverbs  has  become  a  person,  and  that 
when  He  became  flesh.  He  not  only  took  on  Him  the 
garment  of  mortality,  but  laid  aside  *  the  visible  robes 
of  His  imperial  majesty,'  and  that  His  being  found  in 
fashion  as  a  man  was  humbling  Himself  beyond  all 
humiliation  that  afterwards  was  His. 

But  still  further,  the  Gospel  reality  fills  out  and  com- 
pletes the  personification  of  Proverbs  in  that  it  shows 
us  a  divine  person  who  so  turned  to  '  the  sons  of  men ' 
that  He  took  on  Him  their  nature  and  Himself  bore 
their  sicknesses.  The  Jewish  writer  had  great  thoughts 
of  the  divine  condescension,  and  was  sure  that  God's 
love  still  rested  on  men,  sinful  as  they  were,  but  not 
even  he  could  foresee  the  miracle  of  long-suffering  love 
in  the  Incarnate  Jesus,  and  he  had  no  power  of  insight 
into  the  depths  of  the  heart  of  God,  that  enabled  him 
to  foresee  the  sufferings  and  death  of  Jesus.  Till  that 
supreme  self-sacrifice  was  a  fact,  it  was  inconceivable. 
Alas,  now  that  it  is  a  fact,  to  how  many  hearts  that 
need  it  most  is  it  still  incredible.  But  passing  all 
anticipation  as  it  is,  it  is  the  root  of  all  joy,  the  ground 
of  all  hope,  and  to  millions  of  sinful  souls  it  is  their  only 
refuge,  and  their  sovereign  example  and  pattern  of  life. 

The  Jewish  thinker  had  a  glimpse  of  a  divine  wisdom 
which  delighted  in  man,  but  he  did  not  dream  of  the 
divine  stooping  to  share  in  man's  sorrows,  or  of  its  so 
loving  humanity  as  to  take  on  itself  its  limitations,  not 
only  to  pity  these  as  God's  images,  but  to  take  part  of 
the  same  and  to  die.  That  man  should  minister  to  the 
divine  delight  is  wonderful,  but  that  God  should  par- 
ticipate in  man's  grief  passes  wonder.  Thereby  a  new 
tenderness  is  given  to  the  ancient  personification,  and 


142  THE  PROVERBS  [ch.  viii. 

the  august  form  of  the  divine  Wisdom  softens  and 
melts  into  the  yet  more  august  and  tender  likeness  of 
the  divine  Love.  Nor  is  there  only  an  adumbration  of 
the  redeeming  love  of  Jesus  as  He  dwells  among  us 
here,  but  we  have  to  remember  that  Jesus  delights  in 
the  sons  of  men  when  they  love  Him  back  again.  All 
the  sweet  mysteries  of  our  loving  communion  with 
Him,  and  of  His  joy  in  our  faith,  love,  and  obedience, 
all  the  secret  treasures  of  His  self-impartation  to,  and 
abiding  in,  souls  that  open  themselves  to  His  entrance, 
are  suggested  in  that  thought.  We  can  minister  to  the 
joy  of  Jesus,  and  when  He  is  welcomed  into  any  heart, 
and  any  man's  love  answers  His,  He  sees  of  the  travail 
of  His  soul  and  is  satisfied. 

III.  The  call  of  the  personal  Word  to  each  of  us. 

The  Wisdom  of  Proverbs  is  portrayed  in  her  queenly 
dignity,  as  calling  men  to  herself,  and  promising  them 
the  satisfaction  of  all  their  needs.  She  describes  her- 
self that  the  description  may  draw  men  to  her.  The 
self- revelation  of  God  is  His  mightiest  means  of 
attracting  men  to  Him.  We  but  need  to  know  Him  as 
He  really  is,  in  order  to  love  Him  and  cling  to  Him.  A 
fairer  form  than  hers  has  drawn  near  to  us,  and  calls 
us  with  tenderer  invitations  and  better  promises.  The 
divine  Wisdom  has  become  Man  with  '  sweet  human 
hands  and  lips  and  eyes.'  Such  was  His  delight  in  the 
sons  of  men  that  He  emptied  Himself  of  His  glory,  and 
finished  a  greater  work  than  that  over  which  he  pre- 
sided when  the  mountains  were  settled  and  the  hills 
brought  forth.  Now  He  calls  us,  and  His  summons  is 
tenderer,  and  gives  promise  of  loftier  blessings  than 
the  call  of  Wisdom  was  and  did.  She  called  to  the 
simple, '  Come  eat  ye  of  my  bread,  and  drink  of  the  wine 
which  I  have  mingled.'      He  invites  us:  *If  any  man 


vs.  30,  31]     THE  DIVINE  WORKING  143 

thirst,  let  him  come  unto  Me  and  drink,'  and  He  fur- 
nishes a  table  for  us,  and  calls  us  to  eat  of  the  bread 
which  is  His  body  broken  for  us,  and  to  drink  of  the 
wine  which  is  His  blood  shed  for  many  for  the  remission 
of  sins.  She  promises  '  riches  and  honour,  yea,  durable 
riches  and  righteousness.'  His  voice  vibrates  with 
sympathy,  and  calls  the  weary  and  heavy  laden,  of 
whom  she  scarcely  thinks,  and  offers  to  them  a  gift, 
which  may  seem  humble  enough  beside  her  more 
dazzling  offers  of  fruit,  better  than  gold  and  revenues, 
better  than  choice  silver,  but  which  come  closer  to 
universal  wants,  the  gift  of  rest,  which  is  really  what 
all  men  long  for,  and  none  but  they  who  take  His  yoke 
upon  them  possess.  '  See  that  ye  refuse  not  Him  that 
speaketh,'  for  if  they  escaped  not  when  they  refused 
her  that  spake  through  the  Jewish  thinker's  lips  of  old, 
•  much  more  shall  not  we  escape,  if  we  turn  away  from 
Him  that  beseecheth  us  from  heaven.'  Jesus  is  the 
power  of  God  and  the  wisdom  of  God,  and  it  is  in  Him 
crucified  that  our  weakness  and  our  folly  are  made 
strong  and  wise,  and  Wisdom's  ancient  promise  is 
fulfilled :  '  Whoso  findeth  me  findeth  life,  and  shall 
obtain  favour  of  the  Lord.' 


THE  TWO-FOLD  ASPECT  OF  THE  DIVINE 
WORKING 

'  The  way  of  the  Lord  is  strength  to  the  upright :  but  destruction  shall  be  to  the 
workers  of  iniquity.'— Proverbs  x.  29. 

You  observe  that  the  words  'shall  be,'  in  the  last 
clause,  are  a  supplement.  They  are  quite  unnecessary, 
and  in  fact  they  rather  hinder  the  sense.  They  destroy 
the  completeness  of  the  antithesis  between  the  two 


144  THE  PROVERBS  [ch.x. 

halves  of  the  verse.  If  you  leave  them  out,  and  suppose 
that  the  '  way  of  the  Lord '  is  what  is  spoken  of  in  both 
clauses,  you  get  a  far  deeper  and  fuller  meaning. 
'  The  way  of  the  Lord  is  strength  to  the  upright ;  but 
destruction  to  the  workers  of  iniquity.'  It  is  the  same 
way  which  is  strength  to  one  man  and  ruin  to  another, 
and  the  moral  nature  of  the  man  determines  which  it 
shall  be  to  him.  That  is  a  penetrating  word,  which 
goes  deep  down.  The  unknown  thinkers,  to  whose 
keen  insight  into  the  facts  of  human  life  we  are  in- 
debted for  this  Book  of  Proverbs,  had  pondered  for 
many  an  hour  over  the  perplexed  and  complicated 
fates  of  men,  and  they  crystallised  their  reflections  at 
last  in  this  thought.  They  have  in  it  struck  upon  a 
principle  which  explains  a  great  many  things,  and 
teaches  us  a  great  many  solemn  lessons.  Let  us  try 
to  get  a  hold  of  what  is  meant,  and  then  to  look  at 
some  applications  and  illustrations  of  the  principle. 

I.  First,  then,  let  me  just  try  to  put  clearly  the 
meaning  and  bearing  of  these  words.  'The  way  of 
the  Lord '  means,  sometimes  in  the  Old  Testament  and 
sometimes  in  the  New,  religion,  considered  as  the  way 
in  which  God  desires  a  man  to  walk.  So  we  read  in 
the  New  Testament  of  'the  way'  as  the  designation 
of  the  profession  and  practice  of  Christianity;  and 
'  the  way  of  the  Lord '  is  often  used  in  the  Psalms  for 
the  path  which  He  traces  for  man  by  His  sovereign 
will. 

But  that,  of  course,  is  not  the  meaning  here.  Here 
it  means,  not  the  road  in  which  God  prescribes  that 
we  should  walk,  but  that  road  in  which  He  Himself 
walks;  or,  in  other  words,  the  sum  of  the  divine 
action,  the  solemn  footsteps  of  God  through  creation, 
providence,  and  history.    '  His  goings  forth  are  from 


V.  29]  THE  DIVINE  WORKING  145 

everlasting.'  *  His  way  is  in  the  sea.'  *  His  way  is  in 
the  sanctuary.'  Modern  language  has  a  whole  set  of 
phrases  which  mean  the  same  thing  as  the  Jew  meant 
by  *the  way  of  the  Lord,'  only  that  God  is  left  out. 
They  talk  about  the  '  current  of  events,'  '  the  general 
tendency  of  things,'  'the  laws  of  human  affairs,'  and 
so  on.  I,  for  my  part,  prefer  the  old-fashioned 
'Hebraism.'  To  many  modern  thinkers  the  whole 
drift  and  tendency  of  human  affairs  affords  no  sign 
of  a  person  directing  these.  They  hear  the  clashing 
and  grinding  of  opposing  forces,  the  thunder  as  of 
falling  avalanches,  and  the  moaning  as  of  a  homeless 
wind,  but  they  hear  the  sounds  of  no  footfalls  echoing 
down  the  ages.  This  ancient  teacher  had  keener 
ears.  Well  for  us  if  we  share  his  faith,  and  see  in  all 
the  else  distracting  mysteries  of  life  and  history,  '  the 
way  of  the  Lord ! ' 

But  not  only  does  the  expression  point  to  the  opera- 
tion of  a  personal  divine  Will  in  human  affairs,  but 
it  conceives  of  that  operation  as  one,  a  uniform  and 
consistent  whole.  However  complicated,  and  some- 
times apparently  contradictory,  the  individual  events 
were,  there  was  a  unity  in  them,  and  they  all  converged 
on  one  result.  The  writer  does  not  speak  of  'ways,' 
but  of  '  the  way,'  as  a  grand  unity.  It  is  all  one  con- 
tinuous, connected,  consistent  mode  of  operation  from 
beginning  to  end. 

The  author  of  this  proverb  believed  something  more 
about  the  way  of  the  Lord.  He  believed  that  although 
it  is  higher  than  our  way,  still,  a  man  can  know  some- 
thing about  it ;  and  that  whatever  may  be  enigmatical, 
and  sometimes  almost  heart-breaking,  in  it,  one  thing 
is  sure — that  as  we  have  been  taught  of  late  years  in 
another  dialect,  it '  makes  for  righteousness.'    '  Clouds 

K 


146  THE  PROVERBS  [ch.x. 

and  darkness  are  round  about  Him,'  but  the  Old  Testa- 
ment writers  never  falter  in  the  conviction,  which  was 
the  soul  of  all  their  heroism  and  the  life  blood  of  their 
religion,  that  in  the  hearts  of  the  clouds  and  darkness, 
'Justice  and  judgment  are  the  foundations  of  His 
throne.'  The  way  of  the  Lord,  says  this  old  thinker, 
is  hard  to  understand,  very  complicated,  full  of  all 
manner  of  perplexities  and  difficulties,  and  yet  on  the 
whole  the  clear  drift  and  tendency  of  the  whole  thing 
is  discernible,  and  it  is  this :  it  is  all  on  the  side  of  good. 
Everything  that  is  good,  and  everything  that  does 
good,  is  an  ally  of  God's,  and  may  be  sure  of  the  divine 
favour  and  of  the  divine  blessing  resting  upon  it. 

And  just  because  that  is  so  clear,  the  other  side  is 
as  true ;  the  same  way,  the  same  set  of  facts,  the  same 
continuous  stream  of  tendency,  which  is  all  with  and 
for  every  form  of  good,  is  all  against  every  form  of 
evil.  Or,  as  one  of  the  Psalmists  puts  the  same  idea, 
'  The  eyes  of  the  Lord  are  upon  the  righteous,  and  His 
ears  are  open  unto  their  cry.  The  face  of  the  Lord  is 
against  them  that  do  evil.'  The  same  eye  that  beams 
in  lambent  love  on  'the  righteous'  burns  terribly  to 
the  evil  doer.  *  The  face  of  the  Lord '  means  the  side 
of  the  divine  nature  which  is  turned  to  us,  and  is 
manifested  by  His  self-revealing  activity,  so  that  the 
expression  comes  near  in  meaning  to  '  the  way  of  the 
Lord,'  and  the  thought  in  both  cases  is  the  same,  that 
by  the  eternal  law  of  His  being,  God's  actions  must  all 
be  for  the  good  and  against  the  evil. 

They  do  not  change,  but  a  man's  character  determines 
which  aspect  of  them  he  sees  and  has  to  experience. 
God's  way  has  a  bright  side  and  a  dark.  You  may 
take  which  you  like.  You  can  lay  hold  of  the  thing 
by  whichever  handle  you  choose.     On  the  one  side  it 


v.a9]  THE  DIVINE  WORKING  147 

is  convex,  on  the  other  concave.  You  can  approach 
it  from  either  side,  as  you  please.  'The  way  of  the 
Lord '  must  touch  your  'way.'  Your  cannot  alter  that 
necessity.  Your  path  must  either  run  parallel  in  the 
same  direction  with  His,  and  then  all  His  power  will 
be  an  impulse  to  bear  you  onward ;  or  it  must  run  in 
the  opposite  direction,  and  then  all  His  power  will  be 
for  your  ruin,  and  the  collision  with  it  will  crush  you 
as  a  ship  is  crushed  like  an  egg-shell,  when  it  strikes 
an  iceberg.  You  can  choose  which  of  these  shall  befall 
you. 

And  there  is  a  still  more  striking  beauty  about  the 
saying,  if  we  give  the  full  literal  meaning  to  the  word 
'  strength.'  It  is  used  by  our  translators,  I  suppose,  in 
a  somewhat  archaic  and  peculiar  signification,  namely, 
that  of  a  stronghold.  At  all  events  the  Hebrew  means 
a  fortress,  a  place  where  men  may  live  safe  and  secure : 
and  if  we  take  that  meaning,  the  passage  gains  greatly 
in  force  and  beauty.  This  '  way  of  the  Lord '  is  like  a 
castle  for  the  shelter  of  the  shelterless  good  man,  and 
behind  those  strong  bulwarks  he  dwells  impregnable 
and  safe.  Just  as  a  fortress  is  a  security  to  the 
garrison,  and  a  frowning  menace  to  the  besiegers  or 
enemies,  so  the  '  name  of  the  Lord  is  a  strong  tower,' 
and  the  '  way  of  the  Lord '  is  a  fortress.  If  you  choose 
to  take  shelter  within  it,  its  massive  walls  are  your 
security  and  your  joy.  If  you  do  not,  they  frown 
down  grimly  upon  you,  a  menace  and  a  terror.  How 
differently,  eight  hundred  years  ago,  Normans  and 
Saxons  looked  at  the  square  towers  that  were  built 
all  over  England  to  bridle  the  inhabitants!  To  the 
one  they  were  the  sign  of  the  security  of  their 
dominion;  to  the  other  they  were  the  sign  of  their 
slavery  and  submission.      Torture  and  prison-houses 


148  THE  PROVERBS  [ch.x. 

they  might  become ;  frowning  portents  they  necessarily 
were.  '  The  way  of  the  Lord '  is  a  castle  fortress  to  the 
man  that  does  good,  and  to  the  man  that  does  evil  it 
is  a  threatening  prison,  which  may  become  a  hell  of 
torture.  It  is  'ruin  to  the  workers  of  iniquity.'  I 
pray  you,  settle  for  yourself  which  of  these  it  is  to 
be  to  you. 

II.  And  now  let  me  say  a  word  or  two  by  way  of 
application,  or  illustration,  of  these  principles  that  are 
here. 

First,  let  me  remind  you  how  the  order  of  the  uni- 
verse is  such  that  righteousness  is  life  and  sin  is  death. 
This  universe  and  the  fortunes  of  men  are  complicated 
and  strange.  It  is  hard  to  trace  any  laws,  except  purely 
physical  ones,  at  work.  Still,  on  the  whole,  things  do 
work  so  that  goodness  is  blessedness,  and  badness  is 
ruin.  That  is,  of  course,  not  always  true  in  regard  of 
outward  things,  but  even  about  them  it  is  more  often 
and  obviously  true  than  we  sometimes  recognise. 
Hence  all  nations  have  their  proverbs,  embodying  the 
generalised  experience  of  centuries,  and  asserting  that, 
on  the  whole,  '  honesty  is  the  best  policy,'  and  that  it 
is  always  a  blunder  to  do  wrong.  What  modern 
phraseology  calls  *  laws  of  nature,'  the  Bible  calls  '  the 
way  of  the  Lord ' ;  and  the  manner  in  which  these  help 
a  man  who  conforms  to  them,  and  hurt  or  kill  him  if 
he  does  not,  is  an  illustration  on  a  lower  level  of  the 
principle  of  our  text.  This  tremendous  congeries  of 
powers  in  the  midst  of  which  we  live  does  not  care 
whether  we  go  with  it  or  against  it,  only  if  we  do  the 
one  we  shall  prosper,  and  if  we  do  the  other  we  shall 
very  likely  be  made  an  end  of.  Try  to  stop  a  train, 
and  it  will  run  over  you  and  murder  you ;  get  into  it, 
and  it  will  carry  you  smoothly  along.     Our  lives  are 


▼.29]  THE  DIVINE  WORKING  149 

surrounded  with  powers,  which  will  carry  our  messages 
and  be  our  slaves  if  we  know  how  to  command  nature 
by  obeying  it,  or  will  impassively  strike  us  dead  if  we 
do  not. 

Again,  in  our  physical  life,  as  a  rule,  virtue  makes 
strength,  sin  brings  punishment.  'Riotous  living' 
makes  diseased  bodies.  Sins  in  the  flesh  are  avenged 
in  the  flesh,  and  there  is  no  need  for  a  miracle  to  bring 
it  about  that  he  who  sows  to  the  flesh  shall  'of  the 
flesh  reap  corruption.'  God  entrusts  the  punishment  of 
the  breach  of  the  laws  of  temperance  and  morality  in 
the  body  to  the  'natural'  operation  of  such  breach. 
The  inevitable  connection  between  sins  against  the 
body  and  disease  in  the  body,  is  an  instance  of  the  way 
of  the  Lord— the  same  set  of  principles  and  facts — 
being  strength  to  one  man  and  destruction  to  another. 
Hundreds  of  young  men  in  Manchester — some  of  whom 
are  listening  to  me  now,  no  doubt — are  killing  them- 
selves, or  at  least  are  ruining  their  health,  by  flying  in 
the  face  of  the  plain  laws  of  purity  and  self-control. 
They  think  that  they  must '  have  their  fling,'  and  '  obey 
their  instincts,'  and  so  on.  Well,  if  they  must,  then 
another  '  must '  will  insist  upon  coming  into  play — and 
they  must  reap  as  they  have  sown,  and  drink  as  they 
have  brewed,  and  the  grim  saying  of  this  book  about 
profligate  young  men  will  be  fulfilled  in  many  of  them. 
'  His  bones  are  full  of  the  iniquity  of  his  youth,  which 
shall  lie  down  with  him  in  the  grave.'  Be  not  deceived, 
God  is  not  mocked,  and  His  way  avenges  bodily  trans- 
gressions by  bodily  sufferings. 

And  then,  in  higher  regions,  on  the  whole,  goodness 
makes  blessedness,  and  evil  brings  ruin.  All  the  powers 
of  God's  universe,  and  all  the  tenderness  of  God's  heart 
are  on  the  side  of  the  man  that  does  right.    The  stars 


150  THE  PROVERBS  [ch.x. 

in  their  courses  fight  against  the  man  that  fights 
against  Him;  and  on  the  other  side,  in  yielding  thy- 
self to  the  will  of  God  and  following  the  dictates  of 
His  commandments,  'Thou  shalt  make  a  league  with 
the  beasts  of  the  field,  and  the  stones  of  the  field  shall 
be  at  peace  with  thee.'  All  things  serve  the  soul  that 
serves  God,  and  all  war  against  him  who  wars  against 
his  Maker.  The  way  of  the  Lord  cannot  but  further 
and  help  all  who  love  and  serve  Him.  For  them  all 
things  must  work  together  for  good.  By  the  very  laws 
of  God's  own  being,  which  necessarily  shape  all  His 
actions,  the  whole  '  stream  of  tendency  without  us 
makes  for  righteousness.'  In  the  one  course  of  life 
we  go  with  the  stream  of  divine  activity  which  pours 
from  the  throne  of  God.  In  the  other  we  are  like 
men  trying  to  row  a  boat  up  Niagara.  All  the  rush  of 
the  mighty  torrent  will  batter  us  back.  Our  work  will 
be  doomed  to  destruction,  and  ourselves  to  shame.  For 
ever  and  ever  to  be  good  is  to  be  well.  An  eternal 
truth  lies  in  the  facts  that  the  same  word  '  good '  means 
pleasant  and  right,  and  that  sin  and  sorrow  are  both 
called  *  evil.'  All  sin  is  self-inflicted  sorrow,  and  every 
•rogue  is  a  roundabout  fool.'  So  ask  yourselves  the 
question :  *  Is  my  life  in  harmony  with,  or  opposed  to, 
these  omnipotent  laws  which  rule  the  whole  field  of 
life?' 

Still  further,  this  same  fact  of  the  two-fold  aspect 
and  operation  of  the  one  way  of  the  Lord  will  be  made 
yet  more  evident  in  the  future.  It  becomes  us  to  speak 
very  reverently  and  reticently  about  the  matter,  but  I 
can  conceive  it  possible  that  the  one  manifestation  of 
God  in  a  future  life  may  be  in  substance  the  same,  and 
yet  that  it  may  produce  opposite  effects  upon  oppositely 
disposed  souls.    According  to  the  old  mystical  illustra- 


V.29]  THE  DIVINE  WORKING  151 

tion,  the  same  heat  that  melts  wax  hardens  clay,  and 
the  same  apocalypse  of  the  divine  nature  in  another 
world  may  to  one  man  be  life  and  joy,  and  to  another 
man  may  be  terror  and  despair.  I  do  not  dwell  upon 
that ;  it  is  far  too  awful  a  thing  for  us  to  speak  about 
to  one  another,  but  it  is  worth  your  taking  to  heart 
when  you  are  indulging  in  easy  anticipations  that  of 
course  God  is  merciful  and  will  bless  and  save  every- 
body after  he  dies.  Perhaps — I  do  not  go  any  further 
than  a  perhaps — perhaps  God  cannot,  and  perhaps  if  a 
man  has  got  himself  into  such  a  condition  as  it  is 
possible  for  a  man  to  get  into,  perhaps,  like  light  upon 
a  diseased  eye,  the  purest  beam  may  be  the  most  ex- 
quisite pain,  and  the  natural  instinct  may  be  to  'call 
upon  the  rocks  and  the  hills  to  fall  upon  them'  and 
cover  them  up  in  a  more  genial  darkness  from  that 
Face,  to  see  which  should  be  life  and  blessedness. 

People  speak  of  future  rewards  and  punishments  as 
if  they  were  given  and  inflicted  by  simple  and  divine 
volition,  and  did  not  stand  in  any  necessary  connection 
with  holiness  on  the  one  hand  or  with  sin  on  the  other. 
I  do  not  deny  that  some  portion  of  both  bliss  and 
sorrow  may  be  of  such  a  character.  But  there  is  a 
very  important  and  wide  region  in  which  our  actions 
here  must  automatically  bring  consequences  hereafter 
of  joy  or  sorrow,  without  any  special  retributive  action 
of  God's. 

We  have  only  to  keep  in  view  one  or  two  things 
about  the  future  which  we  know  to  be  true,  and  we 
shall  see  this.  Suppose  a  man  with  his  memory  of  all 
his  past  life  perfect,  and  his  conscience  stimulated  to 
greater  sensitiveness  and  clearer  judgment,  and  all 
opportunities  ended  of  gratifying  tastes  and  appetites, 
whose  food  is  in  this  world,  while  yet  the  soul  has 


152  THE  PROVERBS  [ch.x. 

become  dependent  on  them  for  ease  and  comfort. 
What  more  is  needed  to  make  a  hell?  And  the  sup- 
position is  but  the  statement  of  a  fact.  We  seem  to 
forget  much ;  but  when  the  waters  are  drained  off  all 
the  lost  things  will  be  found  at  the  bottom.  Conscience 
gets  dulled  and  sophisticated  here.  But  the  icy  cold  of 
death  will  wake  it  up,  and  the  new  position  will  give 
new  insight  into  the  true  character  of  our  actions. 
You  see  how  often  a  man  at  the  end  of  life  has  his 
eyes  cleared  to  see  his  faults.  But  how  much  more 
will  that  be  the  case  hereafter !  When  the  rush  of 
passion  is  past,  and  you  are  far  enough  from  your  life 
to  view  it  as  a  whole,  holding  it  at  arm's  length,  you 
will  see  better  what  it  looks  like.  There  is  nothing 
improbable  in  supposing  that  inclinations  and  tastes 
which  have  been  nourished  for  a  lifetime  may  survive 
the  possibility  of  indulging  them  in  another  life,  as 
they  often  do  in  this;  and  what  can  be  worse  than 
such  a  thirst  for  one  drop  of  water,  which  never  can 
be  tasted  more?  These  things  are  certain,  and  no 
more  is  needed  to  make  sin  produce,  by  necessary  con- 
sequence, misery,  and  ruin;  while  similarly,  goodness 
brings  joy,  peace,  and  blessing. 

But  again,  the  self -revelation  of  God  has  this  same 
double  aspect. 

'The  way  of  the  Lord'  may  mean  His  process  by 
which  He  reveals  His  character.  Every  truth  concern- 
ing Him  may  be  either  a  joy  or  a  terror  to  men.  All 
His  •  attributes '  are  builded  into  '  a  strong  tower,  into 
which  the  righteous  runneth,  and  is  safe,'  or  else  they 
are  builded  into  a  prison  and  torture-house.  So  the 
thought  of  God  may  either  be  a  happy  and  strengthen- 
ing one,  or  an  unwelcome  one.  'I  remembered  God, 
and  was  troubled,'  says  one  Psalmist.    What  an  awful 


V.29]  THE  DIVINE  WORKING  158 

confession  —  that  the  thought  of  God  disturbed  him! 
The  thought  of  God  to  some  of  us  is  a  very  unwelcome 
one,  as  unwelcome  as  the  thought  of  a  detective  to  a 
company  of  thieves.  Is  not  that  dreadful  ?  Music  is  a 
torture  to  some  ears :  and  there  are  people  who  have 
so  alienated  their  hearts  and  wills  from  God  that  the 
Name  which  should  be  *  their  dearest  faith '  is  not  only 
their  'ghastliest  doubt,'  but  their  greatest  pain.  O 
brethren,  the  thought  of  God  and  all  that  wonderful 
complex  of  mighty  attributes  and  beauties  which  make 
His  Name  should  be  our  delight,  the  key  to  all  treasures, 
the  end  of  all  sorrows,  our  light  in  darkness,  our  life 
in  death,  our  all  in  all.  It  is  either  that  to  us,  or 
it  is  something  that  we  would  fain  forget.  Which  is 
it  to  you  ? 

Especially  the  Gospel  has  this  double  aspect.  Our 
text  speaks  of  the  distinction  between  the  righteous 
and  evil  doers ;  but  how  to  pass  from  the  one  class  to  the 
other,  it  does  not  tell  us.  The  Gospel  is  the  answer  to 
that  question.  It  tells  us  that  though  we  are  all 
'workers  of  iniquity,'  and  must,  therefore,  if  such  a 
text  as  this  were  the  last  word  to  be  spoken  on  the 
matter,  share  in  the  ruin  which  smites  the  opponent 
of  the  divine  will,  we  may  pass  from  that  class;  and 
by  simple  faith  in  Him  who  died  on  the  Cross  for  all 
workers  of  iniquity,  may  become  of  those  righteous 
on  whose  side  God  works  in  all  His  way,  who  have 
all  His  attributes  drawn  up  like  an  embattled  army 
in  their  defence,  and  have  His  mighty  name  for  their 
refuge. 

As  the  very  crown  of  the  ways  of  God,  the  work  of 
Christ  and  the  record  of  it  in  the  Gospel  have  most 
eminently  this  double  aspect.  God  meant  nothing  but 
the  salvation  of  the  whole  world  when  He  sent  us  this 


154  THE  PROVERBS  [ch.x. 

Gospel.  His  'way'  therein  was  pure,  unmingled,  uni- 
versal love.  We  can  make  that  great  message  un- 
troubled blessing  by  simply  accepting  it.  Nothing 
more  is  needed  but  to  take  God  at  His  word,  and  to 
close  with  His  sincere  and  earnest  invitation.  Then 
Christ's  work  becomes  the  fortress  in  which  we  are 
guarded  from  sin  and  guilt,  from  the  arrows  of  con- 
science, and  the  fiery  darts  of  temptation.  But  if  not 
accepted,  then  it  is  not  passive,  it  is  not  nothing.  If 
rejected,  it  does  more  harm  to  a  man  than  anything 
else  can,  just  because,  if  accepted,  it  would  have  done 
him  more  good.  The  brighter  the  light,  the  darker 
the  shadow.  The  pillar  which  symbolised  the  presence 
of  God  sent  down  influences  on  either  side;  to  the 
trembling  crowd  of  the  Israelites  on  the  one  hand,  to 
the  pursuing  ranks  of  the  Egyptians  on  the  other ;  and 
though  the  pillar  was  one,  opposite  effects  streamed 
from  it,  and  it  was  '  a  cloud  and  darkness  to  them,  but 
it  gave  light  by  night  to  these.'  Everything  depends 
on  which  side  of  the  pillar  you  choose  to  see.  The  ark 
of  God,  which  brought  dismay  and  death  among  false 
gods  and  their  worshippers,  brought  blessing  into  the 
humble  house  of  Obed  Edom,  the  man  of  Gath,  with 
whom  it  rested  for  three  months  before  it  was  set  in 
its  place  in  the  city  of  David.  That  which  is  meant  to 
be  the  savour  of  life  unto  life  must  either  be  that  or 
the  savour  of  death  unto  death. 

Jesus  Christ  is  something  to  each  of  us.  For  you  who 
have  heard  His  name  ever  since  you  were  children, 
your  relation  to  Him  settles  your  condition  and  your 
prospects,  and  moulds  your  character.  Either  He  is 
for  you  the  tried  corner-stone,  the  sure  foundation, 
on  which  whosoever  builds  will  not  be  confounded,  or 
He  is  the  stone  of  stumbling,  against  which  whosoever 


V.29]  WISDOM  AND  FOLLY  155 

stumbles  will  be  broken,  and  which  will  crush  to  powder 
whomsoever  it  falls  upon.  '  This  Child  is  set  for  the 
rise'  or  for  the  fall  of  all  who  hear  His  name.  He 
leaves  no  man  at  the  level  at  which  He  found  him,  but 
either  lifts  him  up  nearer  to  God,  and  purity  and  joy, 
or  sinks  him  into  an  ever-descending  pit  of  darkening 
separation  from  all  these.  Which  is  He  to  you? 
Something  He  must  be— your  strength  or  your  ruin. 
If  you  commit  your  souls  to  Him  in  humble  faith,  He 
will  be  your  peace,  your  life,  your  Heaven.  If  you 
turn  from  His  offered  grace,  He  will  be  your  pain, 
your  death,  your  torture.  '  What  maketh  Heaven, 
that  maketh  hell.'    Which  do  you  choose  Him  to  be  ? 


THE    MANY-SIDED    CONTRAST   OF  WISDOM 
AND    FOLLY 

'  Whoso  loveth  instruction  loveth  knowledge :  but  he  that  hateth  reproof  is 
brutish.  2.  A  good  man  obtaineth  favour  of  the  Lord:  but  a  man  of  wicked 
devices  will  he  coudemn.  3.  A  man  shall  not  be  established  by  wickedness ;  but 
the  root  of  the  righteous  shall  not  be  moved.  4.  A  virtuous  woman  is  a  crown  to 
her  husband :  but  she  that  maketh  ashamed  is  as  rottenness  in  his  bones.  5.  The 
thoughts  of  the  righteous  are  right :  but  the  counsels  of  the  wicked  are  deceit. 
6.  The  words  of  the  wicked  are  to  lie  in  wait  for  blood :  but  the  mouth  of  the  up- 
right shall  deliver  them.  7.  The  wicked  are  overthrown,  and  are  not:  but  the 
house  of  the  righteous  shall  stand.  8.  A  man  shall  be  commended  according  to 
his  wisdom :  but  he  that  is  of  a  perverse  heart  shall  be  despised.  9.  He  that  is 
despised,  and  hath  a  servant,  is  better  than  he  that  honoureth  himself,  and  lacketh 
bread.  10.  A  righteous  man  regardeth  the  life  of  his  beast :  but  the  tender 
mercies  of  the  wicked  are  cruel.  11.  He  that  tilleth  his  land  shall  be  satisfied  with 
bread :  but  he  thatfolloweth  vain  persons  is  void  of  understanding.  12.  The  wicked 
desireth  the  net  of  evil  men  :  but  the  root  of  the  righteous  yieldeth  fruit.  13.  The 
wicked  is  snared  by  the  transgression  of  his  lips :  but  the  just  shall  come  out  of 
trouble.  14.  A  man  shall  be  satisfied  with  good  by  the  fruit  of  his  mouth ;  and 
the  recorapence  of  a  man's  hands  shall  be  rendered  unto  him.  16.  The  way  of  a 
fool  is  right  in  his  own  eyes :  but  he  that  hearkeneth  unto  counsel  is  wise.'— 
Proverbs  xii.  1-15. 

The  verses  of  the  present  passage  are  a  specimen  of 
the  main  body  of  the  Book  of  Proverbs.  They  are  not 
a  building,  but  a  heap.  The  stones  seldom  have  any 
mortar  between  them,  and  connection  or  progress  is 
for  the  most  part  sought  in  vain.    But  one  great  anti- 


156  THE  PROVERBS  [ch.xti. 

thesis  runs  through  the  whole — the  contrast  of  wisdom 
or  righteousness  with  folly  or  wickedness.  The  com- 
piler or  author  is  never  weary  of  setting  out  that 
opposition  in  all  possible  lights.  It  is,  in  his  view,  the 
one  difference  worth  noting  between  men,  and  it  de- 
termines their  whole  character  and  fortunes.  The 
book  traverses  with  keen  observation  all  the  realm  of 
life,  and  everywhere  finds  confirmation  of  its  great 
principle  that  goodness  is  wisdom  and  sin  folly. 

There  is  something  extremely  impressive  in  this 
continual  reiteration  of  that  contrast.  As  we  read,  we 
feel  as  if,  after  all,  there  were  nothing  in  the  world  but 
it  and  its  results.  That  profound  sense  of  the  exist- 
ence and  far-reaching  scope  of  the  division  of  men  into 
two  classes  is  not  the  least  of  the  benefits  which  a 
thoughtful  study  of  Proverbs  brings  to  us.  In  this 
lesson  it  is  useless  to  attempt  to  classify  the  verses. 
Slight  traces  of  grouping  appear  here  and  there ;  but, 
on  the  whole,  we  have  a  set  of  miscellaneous  aphorisms 
turning  on  the  great  contrast,  and  setting  in  various 
lights  the  characters  and  fates  of  the  righteous  and  the 
wicked. 

The  first  mark  of  difference  is  the  opposite  feeling 
about  discipline.  If  a  man  is  wise,  he  will  love  '  know- 
ledge'; and  if  he  loves  knowledge,  he  will  love  the 
means  to  it,  and  therefore  will  not  kick  against  correc- 
tion. That  is  another  view  of  trials  from  the  one 
which  inculcates  devout  submission  to  a  Father.  It 
regards  only  the  benefits  to  ourselves.  If  we  want 
to  be  taught  anything,  we  shall  not  flinch  from  the 
rod.  There  must  be  pains  undergone  in  order  to 
win  knowledge  of  any  sort,  and  the  man  who  rebels 
against  these  shows  that  he  had  rather  be  comfortable 
and  ignorant  than  wise.     A  pupil  who  will  not  stand 


v8.  1-15]         WISDOM  AND  FOLLY  157 

having  his  exercises  corrected  will  not  learn  his  faults. 
On  the  other  hand,  hating  reproof  is  '  brutish '  in  the 
most  literal  sense  ;  for  it  is  the  characteristic  of  animals 
that  they  do  not  understand  the  purpose  of  pain,  and 
never  advance  because  they  do  not.  Men  can  grow 
because  they  can  submit  to  discipline;  beasts  cannot 
improve  because,  except  partially  and  in  a  few  cases, 
they  cannot  accept  correction. 

The  first  proverb  deals  with  wisdom  or  goodness  in 
its  inner  source ;  namely,  a  docile  disposition.  The  two 
next  deal  with  its  consequences.  It  secures  God's 
favour,  while  its  opposite  is  condemned  ;  and  then,  as 
a  consequence  of  this,  the  good  man  is  established  and 
the  wicked  swept  away.  The  manifestations  of  God's 
favour  and  its  opposite  are  not  to  be  thrown  forward 
to  a  future  life.  Continuously  the  sunshine  of  divine 
love  falls  on  the  one  man,  and  already  the  other  is  con- 
demned. It  needs  some  strength  of  faith  to  look 
through  the  shows  of  prosperity  often  attending  plain 
wickedness,  and  believe  that  it  is  always  a  blunder  to 
do  wrong. 

But  a  moderate  experience  of  life  will  supply  many 
instances  of  prosperous  villainy  in  trade  and  politics 
which  melted  away  like  mist.  The  shore  is  strewn 
with  wrecks,  dashed  to  pieces  because  righteousness  did 
not  steer.  Every  exchange  gives  examples  in  plenty. 
How  many  seemingly  solid  structures  built  on  wrong 
every  man  has  seen  in  his  lifetime  crumble  like  the 
cloud  masses  which  the  wind  piles  in  the  sky  and  then 
dissipates !  The  root  of  the  righteous  is  in  God,  and 
therefore  he  is  firm.  The  contrast  is  like  that  of 
Psalm  i. — between  the  tree  with  strong  roots  and 
waving  greenery,  and  the  chaff,  rootless,  and  there- 
fore whirled  out  of  the  threshing-floor. 


158  THE  PROVERBS  [ch.  xii. 

The  universal  contrast  is  next  applied  to  women; 
and  in  accordance  with  the  subordinate  position  they 
held  in  old  days,  the  bearing  of  her  goodness  is  princi- 
pally regarded  as  affecting  her  husband.  That  does 
not  cover  the  whole  ground,  of  course.  But  wherever 
there  is  a  true  marriage,  the  wife  will  not  think  that 
woman's  rights  are  infringed  because  one  chief  issue 
of  her  beauty  of  virtue  is  the  honour  and  joy  it  reflects 
upon  him  who  has  her  heart.  '  A  virtuous  woman '  is 
not  only  one  who  possesses  the  one  virtue  to  which  the 
phrase  has  been  so  miserably  confined,  but  who  is  *a 
woman  of  strength ' — no  doll  or  plaything,  but 

•  A  perfect  woman,  nobly  planned 
To  warn,  to  comfort,  and  command.' 

The  gnawing  misery  of  being  fastened  like  two  dogs 
in  a  leash  to  one  who  '  causes  shame  '  is  vividly  por- 
trayed by  that  strong  figure,  that  she  is  like  '  rotten- 
ness in  his  bones,'  eating  away  strength,  and  inflicting 
disfigurement  and  torture. 

Then  come  a  pair  of  verses  describing  the  inward  and 
outward  work  of  the  two  kinds  of  men  as  these  affect 
others.  The  former  verses  dealt  with  their  effects  on 
the  actors ;  the  present,  with  their  bearing  on  others. 
Inwardly,  the  good  man  has  thoughts  which  scrupu- 
lously keep  the  balance  true  and  are  just  to  his  fellows, 
while  the  wicked  plans  to  deceive  for  his  own  profit. 
When  thoughts  are  translated  into  speech,  deceit  bears 
fruit  in  words  which  are  like  ambushes  of  murderers, 
laying  traps  to  destroy,  while  the  righteous  man's 
words  are  like  angels  of  deliverance  to  the  unsuspect- 
ing who  are  ready  to  fall  into  the  snare.  Selfishness, 
which  is  the  root  of  wickedness,  will  be  cruelty  and 
injustice  when  necessary  for  its  ends.    The  man  who  is 


vs.  1-15]        WISDOM  AND  FOLLY  159 

wise  because  God  is  his  centre  and  aim  will  be  merciful 
and  helpful.  The  basis  of  philanthropy  is  religion. 
The  solemn  importance  attached  to  speech  is  observ- 
able. Words  can  slay  as  truly  as  swords.  Now  that 
the  press  has  multiplied  the  power  of  speech,  and 
the  world  is  buzzing  with  the  clatter  of  tongues,  we 
all  need  to  lay  to  heart  the  responsibilities  and  magic 
power  of  spoken  and  printed  words,  and  *  to  set  a  watch 
on  the  door  of  our  lips.' 

Then  follow  a  couple  of  verses  dealing  with  the 
consequences  to  men  themselves  of  their  contrasted 
characters.  The  first  of  these  (verse  7)  recurs  to  the 
thought  of  verse  3,  but  with  a  difference.  Not  only  the 
righteous  himself,  but  his  house,  shall  be  established. 
The  solidarity  of  the  family  and  the  entail  of  goodness 
are  strongly  insisted  on  in  the  Old  Testament,  though 
limitations  are  fully  recognised.  If  a  good  man's  son 
continues  his  father's  character,  he  will  prolong  his 
father's  blessings ;  and  in  normal  conditions,  a  parent's 
wisdom  passes  on  to  his  children.  Something  is  wrong 
when,  as  is  so  often  the  case,  it  does  not ;  and  it  is  not 
always  the  children's  fault. 

The  overthrow  of  the  wicked  is  set  in  striking  con- 
trast with  their  plots  to  overthrow  others.  Their 
mischief  comes  back,  like  an  Australian  boomerang,  to 
the  hand  that  flings  it ;  and  contrariwise,  delivering 
others  is  a  sure  way  of  establishing  one's  self.  Excep- 
tions there  are,  for  the  world-scheme  is  too  compli- 
cated to  be  condensed  into  a  formula  ;  but  all  proverbs 
speak  of  the  average  usual  results  of  virtue  and  vice, 
and  those  of  this  book  do  the  same.  Verse  8  asserts 
that,  on  the  whole,  honour  attends  goodness,  and  con- 
tempt wickedness.  Of  course,  companions  in  dis- 
sipation extol  each  other's  vices,  and  launch  the  old 


160  THE  PROVERBS  [ch.  ^ii. 

threadbare  sneers  at  goodness.  But  if  wisdom  were 
not  set  uppermost  in  men's  secret  judgment,  there 
would  be  no  hypocrites,  and  their  existence  proves 
the  truth  of  the  proverb. 

Verse  9  seems  suggested  by  'despised'  in  verse  8. 
There  are  two  kinds  of  contempt— one  which  brands 
sin  deservedly,  one  which  vulgarly  despises  everybody 
who  is  not  rich.  A  man  need  not  mind,  though  his 
modest  household  is  treated  with  contempt,  if  quiet 
righteousness  reigns  in  it.  It  is  better  to  be  contented 
with  little,  and  humble  in  a  lowly  place,  than  to  be 
proud  and  hungry,  as  many  were  in  the  writer's  time 
and  since.  A  foolish  world  set  on  wealth  may  despise, 
but  its  contempt  breaks  no  bones.  Self-conceit  is  poor 
diet. 

This  seems  to  be  the  first  of  a  little  cluster  of 
proverbs  bearing  on  domestic  life.  It  prefers  modest 
mediocrity  of  station,  such  as  Agur  desired.  Its  suc- 
cessor shows  how  the  contrasted  qualities  come  out 
in  the  two  men's  relation  to  their  domestic  animals. 
Goodness  sweeps  a  wide  circle  touching  the  throne  of 
God  and  the  stall  of  the  cattle.  It  was  not  Coleridge 
who  found  out  that '  He  prayeth  best  who  loveth  best,' 
but  this  old  proverb-maker;  and  he  could  speak  the 
thought  without  the  poet's  exaggeration,  which  robs 
his  expression  of  it  of  half  its  value.  The  original 
says  'knoweth  the  soul,'  which  may  indeed  mean, 
'  regardeth  the  life,'  but  rather  seems  to  suggest  sym- 
pathetic interest  in  leading  to  an  understanding  of 
the  dumb  creature,  which  must  precede  all  wise  care 
for  its  well-being.  It  is  a  part  of  religion  to  try  to 
enter  into  the  mysterious  feelings  of  our  humble  de- 
pendants in  farmyard  and  stable.  On  the  other  handj 
for  want  of  such  sympathetic  interest,  even  when  the 


vs.  1-15]        WISDOM  AND  FOLLY  161 

♦  wicked  '  means  to  be  kind,  he  does  harm ;  or  the  word 
rendered  '  tender  mercies '  may  here  mean  the  feelings 
(literally,  '  bowels ')  which,  in  their  intense  selfishness, 
are  cruel  even  to  animals. 

Verse  11  has  no  connection  with  the  preceding,  unless 
the  link  is  common  reference  to  home  life  and  business. 
It  contrasts  the  sure  results  of  honest  industry  with 
the  folly  of  speculation.      The  Revised  Version  margin 

*  vain  thing! '  is  better  than  the  text  '  vain  persons,' 
which  would  give  no  antithesis  to  the  patient  tilling  of 
the  first  clause.  That  verse  would  make  an  admirable 
motto  to  be  stretched  across  the  Stock  Exchange,  and 
like  places  on  both  sides  of  the  Atlantic.  How  many 
ruined  homes  and  heart-broken  wives  witness  in 
America  and  England  to  its  truth !  The  vulgar  English 
proverb,  '*W  hat  comes  over  the  Devil's  back  goes  under 
his  belly,'  says  the  same  thing.  The  only  way  to  get 
honest  wealth  is  to  work  for  it.  Gambling  in  all  its 
forms  is  rank  folly. 

So  the  next  proverb  (verse  12)  continues  the  same 
thought,  and  puts  it  in  a  somewhat  difficult  phrase.  It 
goes  a  little  deeper  than  the  former,  showing  that  the 
covetousness  which  follows  after  vain  things,  is  really 
wicked  lusting  for  unrighteous  gain.  *  The  net  of  evil- 
doers '  is  better  taken  as  in  the  margin  (Rev.  Ver.) '  prey ' 
or  '  spoil,'  and  the  meaning  seems  to  be  as  just  stated. 
Such  hankering  for  riches,  no  matter  how  obtained, 
or  such  envying  of  the  booty  which  admittedly  has 
been  won  by  roguery,  is  a  mark  of  the  wicked.  How 
many  professing  church  members  have  known  that 
feeling  in  thinking  of  the  millions  of  some  railway 
king!  Would  they  like  the  proverb  to  be  applied  to 
them? 

The  contrast  to  thig  is  'the  root  of  the  righteous 

L 


162  THE  PROVERBS  [ch.  xii. 

yields  fruit,'  or  '  shoots  forth,'  We  have  heard  (verse  3) 
that  it  shall  never  be  moved,  being  fixed  in  God ;  now 
we  are  told  that  it  will  produce  all  that  is  needful.  A 
life  rooted  in  God  will  unfold  into  all  necessary  good, 
which  will  be  better  than  the  spoil  of  the  wicked. 
There  are  two  ways  of  getting  on — to  struggle  and 
fight  and  trample  down  rivals ;  one,  to  keep  near  God 
and  wait  for  him.  '  Ye  fight  and  war ;  ye  have  not, 
because  ye  ask  not.' 

The  next  two  proverbs  have  in  common  a  reference 
to  the  effect  of  speech  upon  the  speaker.  '  In  the  trans- 
gression of  the  lips  is  an  evil  snare ' ;  that  is,  sinful 
words  ensnare  their  utterer,  and  whoever  else  he 
harms,  he  himself  is  harmed  most.  The  reflex  influ- 
ence on  character  of  our  utterances  is  not  present  to  us, 
as  it  should  be.  They  leave  stains  on  lips  and  heart. 
Thoughts  expressed  are  more  definite  and  permanent 
thereby.  A  vicious  thought  clothed  in  speech  has  new 
power  over  the  speaker.  If  we  would  escape  from  that 
danger,  we  must  be  righteous,  and  speak  righteousness ; 
and  then  the  same  cause  will  deepen  our  convictions  of 
'  whatsoever  things  are  lovely  and  of  good  report.' 

Verse  14  insists  on  this  opposite  side  of  the  truth. 
Good  words  will  bring  forth  fruit,  which  will  satisfy 
the  speaker,  because,  whatever  effects  his  words  may 
have  on  others,  they  will  leave  strengthened  goodness 
and  love  of  it  in  himself.  'If  the  house  be  worthy, 
your  peace  shall  rest  upon  it ;  if  not,  it  shall  return  to 
you  again.'  That  reaction  of  words  on  oneself  is  but 
one  case  of  the  universal  law  of  consequences  coming 
back  on  us.  We  are  the  architects  of  our  own  destinies. 
Every  deed  has  an  immortal  life,  and  returns,  either 
like  a  raven  or  a  dove,  to  the  man  who  sent  it  out  on  its 
flight.    It  comes  back  either  croaking  with  blood  on  it« 


vs.  1-15]   POOR  RICH  AND  RICH  POOR     168 

beak,  or  cooing  with  an  olive  branch  in  its  mouth.  All 
life  is  at  once  sowing  and  reaping.  A  harvest  comes 
in  which  retribution  will  be  even  more  entire  and 
accurate. 

The  last  proverb  of  the  passage  gives  a  familiar 
antithesis,  and  partially  returns  to  the  thought  of 
verse  1.  The  fool  has  no  standard  of  conduct  but  his 
own  notions,  and  is  absurdly  complacent  as  to  all  his 
doings.  The  wise  seeks  better  guidance  than  his  own, 
and  is  docile,  because  he  is  not  so  ridiculously  sure  of 
his  infallibility.  No  type  of  weak  wickedness  is  more 
abominable  to  the  proverbialist  than  that  of  pert  self- 
conceit,  which  knows  so  little  that  it  thinks  it  knows 
everything,  and  is  '  as  un tameable  as  a  fly.'  But  in  the 
wisest  sense,  it  is  true  that  a  mark  of  folly  is  self- 
opinionativeness ;  that  a  man  who  has  himself  for 
teacher  has  a  fool  for  scholar ;  that  the  test  of  wisdom 
is  willingness  to  be  taught ;  and,  especially,  that  to  bring 
a  docile,  humble  spirit  to  the  Source  of  all  wisdom,  and 
to  ask  counsel  of  God,  is  the  beginning  of  true  insight, 
and  that  the  self-sufficiency  which  is  the  essence  of 
sin,  is  never  more  fatal  than  when  it  is  ignorant  of 
guilt,  and  therefore  spurns  a  Saviour. 


THE  POOR  RICH  AND  THE  RICH  POOR 

'  There  is  that  maketh  himself  rich,  yet  hath  nothing :  there  is  that  maketh 
himself  poor,  yet  hath  great  riches.'— Proverbs  xiii.  7. 

Two  singularly-contrasted  characters  are  set  in  oppo- 
sition here.  One,  that  of  a  man  who  lives  like  a 
millionaire  and  is  a  pauper;  another,  that  of  a  man 
who  lives  like  a  pauper  and  is  rich.  The  latter  char- 
acter, that  of  a  man  who  hides  and  hoards  his  wealth, 
was,  perhaps,  more  common  in  the  days  when  this 


164  THE  PHO VERBS  [ch.  xiii. 

collection  of  Proverbs  was  put  together,  because  in 
all  ill-governed  countries,  to  show  wealth  is  a  short 
way  to  get  rid  of  it.  But  they  have  their  modem 
representatives.  We  who  live  in  a  commercial  com- 
munity have  seen  many  a  blown-out  bubble  soaring 
and  glittering,  and  then  collapsing  into  a  drop  of  soap- 
suds, and  on  the  other  hand,  we  are  always  hearing 
of  notes  and  bank-books  being  found  stowed  away  in 
some  wretched  hovel  where  a  miser  has  died. 

Now,  I  do  not  suppose  that  the  author  of  this  pro- 
verb attached  any  kind  of  moral  to  it  in  his  own 
mind.  It  is  simply  a  jotting  of  an  observation  drawn 
from  a  wide  experience ;  and  if  he  meant  to  teach 
any  lesson  by  it,  I  suppose  it  was  nothing  more  than 
that  in  regard  to  money,  as  to  other  things,  we  should 
avoid  extremes,  and  should  try  to  show  what  we  are, 
and  to  be  what  we  seem.  But  whilst  thus  I  do  not  take 
it  that  there  is  any  kind  of  moral  or  religious  lesson 
in  the  writer's  mind,  I  may  venture,  perhaps,  to  take 
this  saying  as  being  a  picturesque  illustration,  putting 
in  vivid  fashion  certain  great  truths  which  apply  in  all 
regions  of  life,  and  which  find  their  highest  application 
in  regard  to  Christianity,  and  our  relation  to  Jesus 
Christ.  There,  too,  '  there  is  that  maketh  himself  rich, 
and  yet  hath  nothing ;  and  there  is  that  maketh  him- 
self poor,  and  yet'— or  one  might,  perhaps,  say  there- 
fore— '  hath  great  riches.'  It  is  from  that  point  of  view 
that  I  wish  to  look  at  the  words  at  this  time.  I  must 
begin  with  recalling  to  your  mind, 

I.  Our  universal  poverty. 

Whatever  a  man  may  think  about  himself,  however 
he  may  estimate  himself  and  conceit  himself,  there 
stand  out  two  salient  facts,  the  fact  of  universal  de- 
pendence, and  the  fact  of  universal  sinfulness,  which 


V.  7j      POOR  RICH  AND  RICH  POOR      165 

ought  to  bear  into  every  heart  the  consciousness  of 
this  poverty.  A  word  or  two  about  each  of  these 
two  facts. 

First,  the  fact  of  universal  dependence.  Now,  wise 
men  and  deep  thinkers  have  found  a  very  hard  problem 
in  the  question  of  how  it  is  possible  that  there  should 
be  an  infinite  God  and  a  finite  universe  standing,  as  it 
were,  over  against  Him.  I  am  not  going  to  trouble 
you  with  the  all-but-just-succeeding  answers  to  that 
great  problem  which  the  various  systems  of  thinking 
have  given.  These  lie  apart  from  my  present  purpose. 
But  what  I  would  point  out  is  that,  whatever  else  may 
be  dark  and  difficult  about  the  co-existence  of  these 
two,  the.  infinite  God  and  the  finite  universe,  this  at 
least  is  sun-clear,  that  the  creature  depends  absolutely 
for  everything  on  that  infinite  Creator.  People  talk 
sometimes,  and  we  are  all  too  apt  to  think,  as  if  God 
had  made  the  world  and  left  it.  And  we  are  all  too 
apt  to  think  that,  however  we  may  owe  the  origination 
of  our  own  personal  existence  to  a  divine  act,  the  act 
was  done  when  we  began  to  be,  and  the  life  was  given 
as  a  gift  that  could  be  separated  from  the  Bestower. 
But  that  is  not  the  state  of  the  case  at  all.  The  real 
fact  is  that  life  is  only  continued  because  of  the  con- 
tinued operation  on  every  living  thing,  just  as  being  is 
only  continued  by  reason  of  the  continued  operation 
on  every  existing  thing,  of  the  Divine  Power.  '  In  Him 
we  live,'  and  the  life  is  the  result  of  the  perpetual 
impartation  from  Himself  '  in  whom  all  things  consist,' 
according  to  the  profound  word  of  the  Apostle.  Their 
being  depends  on  their  union  with  Him.  If  it  were 
possible  to  cut  a  sunbeam  in  two,  so  that  the  further 
half  of  it  should  be  separated  from  its  vital  union  with 
the  great  central  fire  from  which  it  rushed  long,  long 


166  THE  PROVERBS  [ch.  xiii. 

ago,  that  further  half  would  pale  into  darkness.  And 
if  you  cut  the  connection  between  God  and  the  creature, 
the  creature  shrivels  into  nothing.  By  Him  the  spring 
buds  around  us  unfold  themselves ;  by  Him  all  things 
are.  So,  at  the  very  foundation  of  our  being  there  lies 
absolute  dependence. 

In  like  manner,  all  that  we  call  faculties,  capacities, 
and  the  like,  are,  in  a  far  deeper  sense  than  the  con- 
ventional use  of  the  word  '  gift '  implies,  bestowments 
from  Him.  The  Old  Testament  goes  to  the  root  of  the 
matter  when,  speaking  of  the  artistic  and  aesthetic 
skill  of  the  workers  in  the  fine  arts  in  the  Tabernacle, 
it  says,  '  the  Spirit  of  the  Lord '  taught  Bezaleel ;  and 
when,  even  in  regard  to  the  brute  strength  of  Samson — 
surely  the  strangest  hero  of  faith  that  ever  existed — 
it  says  that  when  '  the  Spirit  of  the  Lord  came  upon 
him,*  into  his  giant  hands  there  was  infused  the 
strength  by  which  he  tore  the  lion's  jaws  asunder. 
In  like  manner,  all  the  faculties  that  men  possess  they 
have  simply  because  He  has  given  them.  '  What  hast 
thou  that  thou  hast  not  received?  If  thou  hast  re- 
ceived, why  dost  thou  boast  thyself?'  So  there  is  a 
great  psalm  that  gathers  everything  that  makes  up 
human  life,  and  traces  it  all  to  God,  when  it  says, 
•They  shall  be  abundantly  satisfied  with  the  fatness 
of  Thy  house,'  for  from  God  comes  all  that  sustains  us ; 
•Thou  shalt  make  them  drink  of  the  river  of  Thy 
pleasures,'  for  from  God  comes  all  that  gladdens  us ; 
'  with  Thee  is  the  fountain  of  life,'  for  from  Him  flow 
all  the  tiny  streams  that  make  the  life  of  all  that  live; 
'in  Thy  light  shall  we  see  light,'  for  every  power  of 
perceiving,  and  all  grace  and  lustre  of  purity,  owe 
their  source  to  Him.  As  well,  then,  might  the  pitcher 
boast  itself  of  the  sparkling  water  that  it  only  holds, 


V.  7]      POOR  RICH  AND  RICH  POOR      167 

as  well  might  the  earthen  jar  plume  itself  on  the 
treasure  that  has  been  deposited  in  it,  as  we  make 
ourselves  rich  because  of  the  riches  that  w^e  have  re- 
ceived. 'Let  not  the  wise  man  glory  in  his  wisdom, 
neither  let  the  mighty  man  glory  in  his  strength.  Let 
not  the  rich  man  glory  in  his  riches ;  but  he  that 
glorieth,  let  him  glory  in  the  Lord.' 

Then,  turn  for  a  moment  to  the  second  of  the  facts 
on  which  this  universal  poverty  depends,  and  that  is 
the  fact  of  universal  sinfulness.  Ah !  there  is  one  thing 
that  is  our  own — 

•  If  any  power  we  have,  it  is  to  will.' 

We  have  that  strange  faculty,  which  nobody  has  ever 
thoroughly  explained  yet,  but  which  we  all  know  to 
exist,  of  wrenching  ourselves  so  far  away  from  God, 
'  in  whom  we  live  and  move  and  have  our  being,'  that 
we  can  make  our  thoughts  and  ways,  not  merely  lower 
than,  but  contradictory  of,  and  antagonistic  to.  His 
thoughts,  and  His  ways.  Conscience  tells  us,  and  we 
all  know  it,  that  we  are  the  causes  of  our  own  actions, 
though  from  Him  come  the  powers  by  which  we  do 
them.  The  electricity  comes  from  the  central  power- 
station,  but  it  depends  on  us  what  sort  of  wheels  we 
make  it  drive,  and  what  kind  of  work  we  set  it  to 
do.  Make  all  allowances  you  like  for  circumstances — 
what  they  call  nowadays  '  environment,'  by  which  for- 
midable word  some  people  seem  to  think  that  they 
have  explained  away  a  great  many  difficulties — make 
all  allowances  you  like  for  inheritance — what  they  now 
call  •  heredity,'  by  which  other  magic  word  people  seem 
to  think  that  they  may  largely  obliterate  the  sense  of 
responsibility  and  sin — allow  as  much  as  you  like,  in 
reason,  for  these,  and  there  remains  the  indestructible 


168  THE  PROVERBS  [ch.  xiii. 

consciousness  in  every  man,  'I  did  it,  and  it  was  my 
fault  that  I  did  it ;  and  the  moral  guilt  remains.' 

So,  then,  there  are  these  two  things,  universal  de- 
pendence and  universal  sinfulness,  and  on  them  is  built 
the  declaration  of  universal  poverty.  Duty  is  debt. 
Everybody  knows  that  the  two  words  come  from  the 
same  root.  What  we  ought  is  what  we  owe.  We  all 
owe  an  obedience  which  none  of  us  has  rendered.  Ten 
thousand  talents  is  the  debt  and — 'they  had  nothing 
to  pay.'  We  are  like  bankrupts  that  begin  business 
with  a  borrowed  capital,  by  reason  of  our  absolute 
dependence ;  and  so  manage  their  concerns  as  to  find 
themselves  inextricably  entangled  in  a  labyrinth  of  obli- 
gations which  they  cannot  discharge.  We  are  all  paupers. 
And  so  I  come  to  the  second  point,  and  that  is — 

II.  The  poor  rich  man. 

'There  is  that  maketh  himself  rich,  and  yet  hath 
nothing.'  That  describes  accurately  the  type  of  man  of 
whom  there  are  thousands  ;  of  whom  there  are  dozen* 
listening  to  me  at  this  moment ;  who  ignores  depend- 
ence and  is  not  conscious  of  sin,  and  so  struts  about  in 
self-complacent  satisfaction  with  himself,  and  knows 
nothing  of  his  true  condition.  There  is  nothing  more 
tragic — and  so  it  would  be  seen  to  be  if  it  were  not  so 
common — than  that  a  man,  laden,  as  we  each  of  us  are, 
with  a  burden  of  evil  that  we  cannot  get  rid  of,  should 
yet  conceit  himself  to  possess  merits,  virtues,  graces, 
that  ought  to  secure  for  him  the  admiration  of  his 
fellows,  or,  at  least,  to  exempt  him  from  their  censure, 
and  which  he  thinks,  when  he  thinks  about  it  at  all, 
may  perhaps  secure  for  him  the  approbation  of  God. 
•  The  deceitf  ulness  of  sin '  is  one  of  its  mightiest  powers. 
There  is  nothing  that  so  blinds  a  man  to  the  real 
moral  character  of  actions  as  that  obstinate  self-corn- 


V.7]      POOR  RICH  AND  RICH  POOR      169 

placency  which  approves  of  a  thing  because  it  is  mine. 
You  condemn  in  other  people  the  very  things  you  do 
yourself.  You  see  all  their  ugliness  in  them ;  you  do 
not  recognise  it  when  it  is  your  deed.  Many  of  you 
have  never  ventured  upon  a  careful  examination  and 
appraisement  of  your  own  moral  and  religious  char- 
acter. You  durst  not,  for  you  are  afraid  that  it  would 
turn  out  badly.  So,  like  some  insolvent  who  has 
not  the  courage  to  face  the  facts,  you  take  refuge 
in  defective  bookkeeping,  and  think  that  that  is  as 
good  as  being  solvent.  Then  you  have  far  too  low  a 
standard,  and  one  of  the  main  reasons  why  you  have 
so  low  a  standard  is  just  because  the  sins  that  you  do 
have  dulled  your  consciences,  and  like  the  Styrian 
peasants  that  eat  arsenic,  the  poison  does  not  poison 
you,  and  you  do  not  feel  yourself  any  the  worse  for 
it.  Dear  brethren !  these  are  very  rude  things  for  me 
to  say  to  you.  I  am  saying  them  to  myself  as  much 
as  to  you,  and  I  would  to  God  that  you  would 
listen  to  them,  not  because  I  say  them,  but  because 
they  are  true.  The  great  bulk  of  us  know  our  own 
moral  characters  just  as  little  as  we  know  the  sound 
of  our  own  voices.  I  suppose  if  you  could  hear  your- 
self speak  you  would  say, '  I  never  knew  that  my  voice 
sounded  like  that.'  And  I  am  quite  sure  that  many  of 
you,  if  the  curtain  could  be  drawn  aside  which  is 
largely  woven  out  of  the  black  yarn  of  your  own  evil 
thoughts,  and  you  could  see  yourselves  as  in  a  mirror, 
you  would  say,  *I  had  no  notion  that  I  looked  like 
that.'  'There  is  that  maketh  himself  rich,  and  yet 
hath  nothing.' 

Ay!  and  more  than  that.  The  making  of  yourself 
rich  is  the  sure  way  to  prevent  yourself  from  ever  being 
so.    We  see  that  in  all  other  regions  of  life.    If  a  student 


170  THE  PROVERBS  [cH.xm. 

says  to  himself,  '  Oh !  I  know  all  that  subject,'  the 
chances  are  that  he  will  not  get  it  up  any  more ;  and 
the  further  chance  is  that  he  will  be  '  ploughed '  when 
the  examination  -  day  comes.  If  the  artist  stands 
before  the  picture,  and  says  to  himself,  'Well  done, 
that  is  the  realisation  of  my  ideal!'  he  will  paint  no 
more  anything  worth  looking  at.  And  in  any  depart- 
ment, when  a  man  says  '  Lo !  I  have  attained,'  then  he 
ceases  to  advance. 

Now,  bring  all  that  to  bear  upon  religion,  upon  Christ 
and  His  salvation,  upon  our  own  spiritual  and  religious 
and  moral  condition.  The  sense  of  imperfection  is  the 
salt  of  approximation  to  perfection.  And  the  man 
that  says  '  I  am  rich '  is  condemning  himself  to  poverty 
and  pauperism.  If  you  do  not  know  your  need,  you 
will  not  go  to  look  for  the  supply  of  it.  If  you  fancy 
yourselves  to  be  quite  well,  though  a  mortal  disease 
has  gripped  you,  you  will  take  no  medicine,  nor 
have  recourse  to  any  physician.  If  you  think  that 
you  have  enough  good  to  show  for  man's  judgment 
and  for  God's,  and  have  not  been  convinced  of  your 
dependence  and  your  sinfulness,  then  Jesus  Christ  will 
be  very  little  to  you,  and  His  great  work  as  the 
Redeemer  and  Saviour  of  His  people  from  their  sins 
will  be  nothing  to  you.  And  so  you  will  condemn  your- 
selves to  have  nothing  unto  the  very  end. 

I  believe  that  this  generation  needs  few  things 
more  than  it  needs  a  deepened  consciousness  of  the 
reality  of  sin  and  of  the  depth  and  damnable  nature 
of  it.  It  is  because  people  feel  so  little  of  the  burden 
of  their  transgression  that  they  care  so  little  for  that 
gentle  Hand  that  lifts  away  their  burden.  It  is  because 
from  much  of  popular  religion— and,  alas !  that  I 
should  have  to  say  it,  from  much  of  popular  preach- 


V.  7]      POOR  RICH  AND  RICH  POOR      171 

ing — there  has  vanished  the  deep  wholesome  sense  of 
poverty,  that,  from  so  much  of  popular  religion,  and 
preaching  too,  there  has  faded  away  the  central  light 
of  the  Gospel,  the  proclamation  of  the  Cross  by  which 
is  taken  away  the  sin  of  the  whole  world. 

So,  lastly,  my  text  brings  before  us — 

III.  The  rich  poor  man. 

'  There  is  that  maketh  himself  poor  and  yet ' — or,  as 
varied,  the  expression  is,  '  therefore  hath  great  riches.' 
Jesus  Christ  has  lifted  the  thoughts  in  my  text  into 
the  very  region  into  which  I  am  trying  to  bring  them, 
when  in  the  first  of  all  the  Beatitudes,  as  they  are 
called,  '  He  opened  His  mouth  and  said,  Blessed  are  the 
poor  in  spirit,  for  theirs  is  the  Kingdom  of  Heaven.' 
Poor,  and  therefore  an  owner  of  a  kingdom!  Now  I 
need  not,  at  this  stage  of  my  sermon,  insist  upon  the 
fact  that  that  consciousness  of  poverty  is  the  only 
fitting  attitude  for  any  of  us  to  take  up  in  view  of 
the  two  facts  with  which  I  started,  the  fact  of  our 
dependence  and  the  fact  of  our  sinfulness.  What 
absurdity  it  seems  for  a  man  about  whom  these  two 
things  are  true,  that,  as  I  said,  he  began  with  a  borrowed 
capital,  and  has  only  incurred  greater  debts  in  his 
transactions,  there  should  be  any  foothold  left  in  his 
own  estimation  on  which  he  can  stand  and  claim  to  be 
anything  but  the  pauper  that  he  is.  Oh !  brethren,  of 
all  the  hallucinations  that  we  put  upon  ourselves  in 
trying  to  believe  that  things  are  as  we  wish,  there 
is  none  more  subtle,  more  obstinate,  more  deeply 
dangerous  than  this,  that  a  man  full  of  evil  should 
be  so  ignorant  of  his  evil  as  to  say,  like  that  Pharisee 
in  our  Lord's  parable,  *  I  thank  Thee  that  I  am  not  as 
other  men  are.  I  give  tithes  ...  I  pray  ...  I  am 
this,  that,  and  the  other  thing ;  not  like  that  wretched 


172  THE  PROVERBS  [ch.  xiii. 

publican  over  there.'  Yes,  this  is  the  fit  attitude  for  us, 
— '  He  would  not  so  much  as  lift  up  his  eyes  to  heaven.' 

Then  let  me  remind  you  that  this  wholesome  recogni- 
tion of  facts  about  ourselves  as  they  are  is  the  sure 
way  to  possess  the  wealth.  Of  course,  it  is  possible 
for  a  man  by  some  mighty  influence  or  other  brought 
to  bear  upon  him,  to  see  himself  as  God  sees  him,  and 
then,  if  there  is  nothing  more  than  that,  he  is  tortured 
with  'the  sorrow  that  worketh  death.'  Judas  'went 
out  and  hanged  himself ' ;  Peter  *  went  out  and  wept 
bitterly.'  The  one  was  sent '  to  his  own  place,'  wherever 
that  was ;  the  other  was  sent  foremost  of  the  Twelve. 
If  you  see  your  poverty,  let  self-distrust  be  the  nadir, 
the  lowest  point,  and  let  faith  be  the  complementary 
high  point,  the  zenith.  The  rebound  from  self-distrust 
to  trust  in  Christ  is  that  which  makes  the  consciousness 
of  poverty  the  condition  of  receiving  wealth. 

And  what  wealth  it  is! — the  wealth  of  a  peaceful 
conscience,  of  a  quiet  heart,  of  lofty  aims,  of  a  pure 
mind,  of  strength  according  to  our  need,  of  an  immortal 
hope,  of  a  treasure  in  the  heavens  that  faileth  not, 
'where  neither  moth  nor  rust  doth  corrupt;  where 
thieves  do  not  break  through  nor  steal.'  Blessed  be 
God!  the  more  we  have  the  riches  of  glory  in  Christ 
Jesus,  the  more  shall  we  feel  that  we  have  nothing, 
and  that  all  is  His,  and  none  of  it  ours.  And  so,  as  the 
rivers  run  in  the  valleys,  and  the  high  mountain-tops 
are  dry  and  barren,  the  grace  which  makes  us  rich  will 
run  in  the  low  ground  of  our  conscious  humiliation 
and  nothingness. 

Dear  brother !  do  you  estimate  yourself  as  you  are  ? 
Have  you  taken  stock  of  yourself?  Have  you  got 
away  from  the  hallucination  of  possessing  wealth? 
Has  your  sense  of  need  led  you  to  cease  from  trust  in 


V.  7]      THE  TILLAGE  OF  THE  POOR      173 

yourself,  and  to  put  all  your  trust  in  Jesus  Christ? 
Have  you  taken  the  wealth  which  He  freely  gives  to 
all  who  sue  in  formd  pauperis  ?  He  does  not  ask  you 
to  bring  anything  but  debts  and  sins,  emptiness  and 
weakness,  and  penitent  faith.  He  will  strengthen  the 
weakness,  fill  the  emptiness,  forgive  the  sins,  cancel  the 
debts,  and  make  you  *  rich  toward  God.'  I  beseech  you 
to  listen  to  Him,  speaking  from  heaven,  and  taking  up 
the  strain  of  this  text :  '  Because  thou  sayest  I  am  rich, 
and  increased  with  goods,  and  have  need  of  nothing; 
and  knowest  not  that  thou  art  wretched,  and  miser- 
able, and  poor,  and  blind,  and  naked,  I  counsel  thee  to 
buy  of  Me  gold  tried  in  the  fire,  that  thou  mayest  be 
rich.'  And  then  you  will  be  of  those  blessed  poor  ones 
who  are  •  rich  through  faith,  and  heirs  of  the  Kingdom.' 


THE  TILLAGE  OF  THE  POOR 

Ifach  food  is  in  the  tillage  of  the  poor.'— Provbbbs  xiii.  23. 

Palestine  was  a  land  of  small  peasant  proprietors,  and 
the  institution  of  the  Jubilee  was  intended  to  prevent 
the  acquisition  of  large  estates  by  any  Israelite.  The 
consequence,  as  intended,  was  a  level  of  modest  pro- 
sperity. It  was  *  the  tillage  of  the  poor,'  the  careful, 
diligent  husbandry  of  the  man  who  had  only  a  little 
patch  of  land  to  look  after,  that  filled  the  storehouses 
of  the  Holy  Land.  Hence  the  proverb  of  our  text 
arose.  It  preserves  the  picture  of  the  economical  con- 
ditions in  which  it  originated,  and  it  is  capable  of,  and 
is  intended  to  have,  an  application  to  all  forms  and 
fields  of  work.  In  all  it  is  true  that  the  bulk  of  the 
harvested  results  are  due,  not  to  the  large  labours  of 
the  few,  but  to  the  minute,  unnoticed   toils  of  the 


174  THE  PROVERBS  [ch.  xiii. 

many.  Small  service  is  true  service,  and  the  aggregate 
of  such  produces  large  crops.  Spade  husbandry  gets 
most  out  of  the  ground.  The  labourer's  allotment  of 
half  an  acre  is  generally  more  prolific  than  the  average 
of  the  squire's  estate.  Much  may  be  made  of  slender 
gifts,  small  resources,  and  limited  opportunities  if  care- 
fully cultivated,  as  they  should  be,  and  as  their  very 
slenderness  should  stimulate  their  being. 

One  of  the  psalms  accuses  '  the  children  of  Ephraim ' 
because, '  being  armed  and  carrying  bows,  they  turned 
back  in  the  day  of  battle.'  That  saying  deduces  obliga- 
tion from  equipment,  and  preaches  a  stringent  code  of 
duty  to  those  who  are  in  any  direction  largely  gifted. 
Power  to  its  last  particle  is  duty,  and  not  small  is  the 
crime  of  those  who,  with  great  capacities,  have  small 
desire  to  use  them,  and  leave  the  brunt  of  the  battle  to 
half -trained  soldiers,  badly  armed. 

But  the  imagery  of  the  fight  is  not  sujfficient  to 
include  all  aspects  of  Christian  effort.  The  peaceful 
toil  of  the  'husbandman  that  labours'  stands,  in  one 
of  Paul's  letters,  side  by  side  with  the  heroism  of  the 
•man  that  warreth.'  Our  text  gives  us  the  former 
image,  and  so  supplements  that  other. 

It  completes  the  lesson  of  the  psalm  in  another 
respect,  as  insisting  on  the  importance,  not  of  the 
well  endowed,  but  of  the  slenderly  furnished,  who  are 
immensely  in  the  majority.  This  text  is  a  message  to 
ordinary,  mediocre  people,  without  much  ability  or 
influence. 

I.  It  teaches,  first,  the  responsibility  of  small  gifts. 

It  is  no  mere  accident  that  in  our  Lord's  great 
parable  He  represents  the  man  with  the  one  talent  as 
the  hider  of  his  gift.  There  is  a  certain  pleasure  in 
doing  what  we   can   do,  or  fancy  we  can   do,  well. 


V.23]    THE  TILLAGE  OF  THE  POOR      175 

There  is  a  certain  pleasure  in  the  exercise  of  any 
kind  of  gift,  be  it  of  body  or  mind;  but  when  we 
know  that  we  are  but  very  slightly  gifted  by  Him, 
there  is  a  temptation  to  say,  '  Oh !  it  does  not  matter 
much  whether  I  contribute  my  share  to  this,  that,  or 
the  other  work  or  no.  I  am  but  a  poor  man.  My 
half-crown  will  make  but  a  small  difference  in  the 
total.  I  am  possessed  of  very  little  leisure.  The  few 
minutes  that  I  can  spare  for  individual  cultivation, 
or  for  benevolent  work,  will  not  matter  at  all.  I  am 
only  an  insignificant  unit ;  nobody  pays  any  attention 
to  my  opinion.  It  does  not  in  the  least  signify 
whether  I  make  my  influence  felt  in  regard  of  social, 
religious,  or  political  questions,  and  the  like.  I  can 
leave  all  that  to  the  more  influential  men.  My  little- 
ness at  least  has  the  prerogative  of  immunity.  My 
little  finger  would  produce  such  a  slight  impact  on 
the  scale  that  it  is  indifferent  whether  I  apply  it  or 
not.  It  is  a  good  deal  easier  for  me  to  wrap  up  my 
talent — which,  after  all,  is  only  a  threepenny  bit,  and 
not  a  talent — and  put  it  away  and  do  nothing.' 

Yes,  but  then  you  forget,  dear  friend !  that  responsi- 
bility does  not  diminish  with  the  size  of  the  gifts,  but 
that  there  is  as  great  responsibility  for  the  use  of 
the  smallest  as  for  the  use  of  the  largest,  and  that 
although  it  does  not  matter  very  much  to  anybody 
but  yourself  what  you  do,  it  matters  all  the  world  to 
you. 

But  then,  besides  that,  my  text  tells  us  that  it  does 
matter  whether  the  poor  man  sets  himself  to  make 
the  most  of  his  little  patch  of  ground  or  not.  '  There  is 
much  food  in  the  tillage  of  the  poor.'  The  slenderly 
endowed  are  the  immense  majority.  There  is  a  genius 
or  two  here  and  there,  dotted  along  the  line  of  the 


176  THE  PROVERBS  [ch.  xiii. 

world's  and  the  Church's  history.  The  great  men  and 
wise  men  and  mighty  men  and  wealthy  men  may  be 
counted  by  units,  but  the  men  that  are  not  very  much 
of  anything  are  to  be  counted  by  millions.  And  unless 
we  can  find  some  stringent  law  of  responsibility  that 
applies  to  them,  the  bulk  of  the  human  race  will  be 
under  no  obligation  to  do  anything  either  for  God  or 
for  their  fellows,  or  for  themselves.  If  I  am  absolved 
from  the  task  of  bringing  my  weight  to  bear  on  the 
side  of  right  because  my  weight  is  infinitesimal,  and  I 
am  only  one  in  a  million,  suppose  all  the  million  were 
to  plead  the  same  excuse;  what  then?  Then  there 
would  not  be  any  weight  on  the  side  of  the  right  at 
all.  The  barns  in  Palestine  were  not  filled  by  farming 
on  a  great  scale  like  that  pursued  away  out  on  the 
western  prairies,  where  one  man  will  own,  and  his 
servants  will  plough  a  furrow  for  miles  long,  but  they 
were  filled  by  the  small  industries  of  the  owners  of 
tiny  patches. 

The  'tillage  of  the  poor,'  meaning  thereby  not  the 
mendicant,  but  the  peasant  owner  of  a  little  plot, 
yielded  the  bulk  of  the  'food.'  The  wholesome  old 
proverb,  '  many  littles  make  a  mickle,'  is  as  true  about 
the  influence  brought  to  bear  in  the  world  to  arrest 
evil  and  to  sweeten  corruption  as  it  is  about  anything 
besides.  Christ  has  a  great  deal  more  need  of  the 
cultivation  of  the  small  patches  that  He  gives  to  the 
most  of  us  than  He  has  even  of  the  cultivation  of 
the  large  estates  that  He  bestows  on  a  few.  Responsi- 
bility is  not  to  be  measured  by  amount  of  gift,  but  is 
equally  stringent,  entire,  and  absolute  whatsoever  be 
the  magnitude  of  the  endowments  from  which  it 
arises. 
Let  me  remind  you,  too,  how  the  same  virtues  and 


T.23]    THE  TILLAGE  OF  THE  POOR      177 

excellences  can  be  practised  in  the  administering  of 
the  smallest  as  in  that  of  the  greatest  gifts.  Men  say 
— I  dare  say  some  of  you  have  said — '  Oh !  if  I  were 
eloquent  like  So-and-so  ;  rich  like  somebody  else ;  a 
man  of  weight  and  importance  like  some  other,  how 
I  would  consecrate  my  powers  to  the  Master!  But  I 
am  blow  of  speech,  or  nobody  minds  me,  or  I  have 
but  very  little  that  I  can  give.'  Yes !  '  He  that  is 
faithful  in  that  which  is  least  is  faithful  also  in  much.' 
If  you  do  not  utilise  the  capacity  possessed,  to  increase 
the  estate  would  only  be  to  increase  the  crop  of  weeds 
from  its  uncultivated  clods.  We  never  palm  off  a 
greater  deception  on  ourselves  than  when  we  try  to 
hoodwink  conscience  by  pleading  bounded  gifts  as  an 
excuse  for  boundless  indolence,  and  to  persuade  our- 
selves that  if  we  could  do  more  we  should  be  less 
inclined  to  do  nothing.  The  most  largely  endowed 
has  no  more  obligation  and  no  fairer  field  than  the 
most  slenderly  gifted  lies  under  and  possesses. 

All  service  coming  from  the  same  motive  and  tend- 
ing to  the  same  end  is  the  same  with  God.  Not  the 
magnitude  of  the  act,  but  the  motive  thereof,  deter- 
mines the  whole  character  of  the  life  of  which  it  is 
a  part.  The  same  graces  of  obedience,  consecration, 
quick  sympathy,  self-denying  effort  may  be  cultivated 
and  manifested  in  the  spending  of  a  halfpenny  as  in 
the  administration  of  millions.  The  smallest  rainbow 
in  the  tiniest  drop  that  hangs  from  some  sooty  eave 
and  catches  the  sunlight  has  precisely  the  same  lines, 
in  the  same  order,  as  the  great  arch  that  strides  across 
half  the  sky.  If  you  go  to  the  Giant's  Causeway,  or  to 
the  other  end  of  it  amongst  the  Scotch  Hebrides,  you 
will  find  the  hexagonal  basaltic  pillars  all  of  identically 
the  same  pattern  and  shape,  whether  their  height  be 

M 


178  THE  PROVERBS  [ch.  xiii. 

measured  by  feet  or  by  tenths  of  an  inch.  Big  or 
little,  they  obey  exactly  the  same  law.  There  is  '  much 
food  in  the  tillage  of  the  poor.' 

II.  But  now,  note,  again,  how  there  must  be  a 
diligent  cultivation  of  the  small  gifts. 

The  inventor  of  this  proverb  had  looked  carefully 
and  sympathetically  at  the  way  in  which  the  little 
peasant  proprietors  worked ;  and  he  saw  in  that  a 
pattern  for  all  life.  It  is  not  always  the  case,  of 
course,  that  a  little  holding  means  good  husbandry, 
but  it  is  generally  so ;  and  you  will  find  few  waste 
corners  and  few  unweeded  patches  on  the  ground  of 
a  man  whose  whole  ground  is  measured  by  rods  in- 
stead of  by  miles.  There  will  usually  be  little  waste 
time,  and  few  neglected  opportunities  of  working  in 
the  case  of  the  peasant  whose  subsistence,  with  that 
of  his  family,  depends  on  the  diligent  and  wise  crop- 
ping of  the  little  patch  that  does  belong  to  him. 

And  so,  dear  brethren!  if  you  and  I  have  to  take 
our  place  in  the  ranks  of  the  one-talented  men,  the 
commonplace  run  of  ordinary  people,  the  more  reason 
for  us  to  enlarge  our  gifts  by  a  sedulous  diligence,  by 
an  unwearied  perseverance,  by  a  keen  look-out  for  all 
opportunities  of  service,  and  above  all  by  a  prayerful 
dependence  upon  Him  from  whom  alone  comes  the 
power  to  toil,  and  who  alone  gives  the  increase.  The 
less  we  are  conscious  of  large  gifts  the  more  we  should 
be  bowed  in  dependence  on  Him  from  whom  cometh 
'  every  good  and  perfect  gift ' ;  and  who  gives  according 
to  His  wisdom;  and  the  more  earnestly  should  we 
use  that  slender  possession  which  God  may  have  given 
us.  Industry  applied  to  small  natural  capacity  will  do 
far  more  than  larger  power  rusted  away  by  sloth. 
You  all  know  that  it  is  so  in  regard  of  daily  life,  and 


V.23]     THE  TILLAGE  OF  THE  POOR      179 

common  business,  and  the  acquisition  of  mundane 
sciences  and  arts.  It  is  just  as  true  in  regard  to  tlie 
Christian  race,  and  to  the  Christian  Church's  work  of 
witness. 

Who  are  they  who  have  done  the  most  in  this  world 
for  God  and  for  men?  The  largely  endowed  men? 
*Not  many  wise,  not  many  mighty,  not  many  noble 
are  called.'  The  coral  insect  is  microscopic,  but  it  will 
build  up  from  the  profoundest  depth  of  the  ocean  a 
reef  against  which  the  whole  Pacific  may  dash  in  vain. 
It  is  the  small  gifts  that,  after  all,  are  the  important 
ones.  So  let  us  cultivate  them  the  more  earnestly  the 
more  humbly  we  think  of  our  own  capacity.  *  Play 
well  thy  part;  there  all  the  honour  lies.'  God,  who 
has  builded  up  some  of  the  towering  Alps  out  of  mica- 
flakes,  builds  up  His  Church  out  of  infinitesimally 
small  particles— slenderly  endowed  men  touched  by 
the  consecration  of  His  love. 

III.  Lastly,  let  me  remind  you  of  the  harvest  reaped 
from  these  slender  gifts  when  sedulously  tilled. 

Two  great  results  of  such  conscientious  cultivation 
and  use  of  small  resources  and  opportunities  may  be 
suggested  as  included  in  that  abundant '  food '  of  which 
the  text  speaks. 

The  faithfully  used  faculty  increases.  '  To  him  that 
hath  shall  be  given.'  'Oh!  if  I  had  a  wider  sphere 
how  I  would  flame  in  it,  and  fill  it!'  Then  twinkle 
your  best  in  your  little  sphere,  and  that  will  bring  a 
wider  one  some  time  or  other.  For,  as  a  rule,  and  in 
the  general,  though  with  exceptions,  opportunities 
come  to  the  man  that  can  use  them ;  and  roughly,  but 
yet  substantially,  men  are  set  in  this  world  where  they 
can  shine  to  the  most  advantage  to  God.  Fill  your 
place;  and  if  you,  like  Paul,  have  borne  witness  for 


180  THE  PROVERBS  [ch.xtii. 

the  Master  in  little  Jerusalem,  He  will  not  keep  you 
there,  but  carry  you  to  bear  witness  for  Him  in 
imperial  Rome  itself. 

The  old  fable  of  the  man  who  told  his  children  to 
dig  all  over  the  field  and  they  would  find  treasure, 
has  its  true  application  in  regard  to  Christian  effort 
and  faithful  stewardship  of  the  gifts  bestowed  upon 
us.  The  sons  found  no  gold,  but  they  improved  the 
field,  and  secured  its  bearing  golden  harvests,  and  they 
strengthened  their  own  muscles,  which  was  better 
than  gold.  So  if  we  want  larger  endowments  let  us 
honestly  use  what  we  possess,  and  use  will  make  growth. 

The  other  issue,  about  which  I  need  not  say  more 
than  a  word,  is  that  the  final  reward  of  all  faithful 
service — •  Enter  thou  into  the  joy  of  thy  Lord '  is  said, 
not  to  the  brilliant,  but  to  the  '  faithful '  servant.  In 
that  great  parable,  which  is  the  very  text-book  of 
this  whole  subject  of  gifts  and  responsibilities  and 
recompense,  the  men  who  were  entrusted  with  un- 
equal sums  used  these  unequal  sums  with  equal 
diligence,  as  is  manifest  by  the  fact  that  they  realised 
an  equal  rate  of  increase.  He  that  got  two  talents 
made  two  more  out  of  them,  and  he  that  had  five  did 
no  more;  for  he,  too,  but  doubled  his  capital.  So, 
because  the  poorer  servant  with  his  two,  and  the 
richer  with  his  ten,  had  equally  cultivated  their 
diversely-measured  estates,  they  were  identical  in 
reward;  and  to  each  of  them  the  same  thing  is  said: 
'Enter  thou  into  the  joy  of  thy  Lord.'  It  matters 
little  whether  we  copy  some  great  picture  upon  a 
canvas  as  big  as  the  side  of  a  house,  or  upon  a  thumb- 
nail ;  the  main  thing  is  that  we  copy  it.  If  we  truly 
employ  whatsoever  gifts  God  has  given  to  us,  then 
we  shall  be  accepted  according  to  that  we  have,  and 
not  according  to  that  we  have  not. 


SIN  THE  MOCKER 

'Fools  make  a  mock  at  sin :  but  among  the  righteous  there  is  favour.'— 

Proverbs  xiv.  9. 

The  wisdom  of  this  Book  of  Proverbs  is  not  simply 
intellectual,  but  it  has  its  roots  in  reverence  and  obedi- 
ence to  God,  and  for  its  accompaniment,  righteousness. 
The  wise  man  is  the  good  man,  and  the  good  man  is 
the  godly  man.  And  as  is  wisdom,  so  its  opposite,  folly, 
is  not  only  intellectual  feebleness — the  bad  man  is  a 
fool,  and  the  godless  is  a  bad  man.  The  greatest 
amount  of  brain-power  cultivated  to  the  highest  degree 
does  not  make  a  man  wise,  and  about  many  a  student 
and  thinker  God  pronounces  the  sentence  '  Thou  fool ! ' 

That  does  not  mean  that  all  sin  is  ignorance,  as  we 
sometimes  hear  it  said  with  a  great  show  of  tolerant 
profundity.  There  is  some  ignorance  in  all  sin,  but  the 
essence  of  sin  is  the  aversion  of  the  will  from  a  law  and 
from  a  Person,  not  the  defect  of  the  understanding.  So 
far  from  all  sin  being  but  ignorance,  and  therefore 
blameless,  there  is  no  sin  without  knowledge,  and  the 
measure  of  ignorance  is  the  measure  of  blamelessness ; 
unless  the  ignorance  be  itself,  as  it  often  is,  criminal. 
Ignorance  is  one  thing,  folly  is  another. 

One  more  remark  by  way  of  introduction  must  be 
made  on  the  language  of  our  text.  The  margin  of  the 
Revised  Version  correctly  turns  it  completely  round, 
and  for  '  the  foolish  make  a  mock  at  guilt,'  would  read, 
'  guilt  mocketh  at  the  foolish.'  In  the  original  the  verb 
in  our  text  is  in  the  singular,  and  the  only  singular 
noun  to  go  with  it  is  '  guilt.'  The  thought  then  here  is, 
that  sin  tempts  men  into  its  clutches,  and  then  gibes 
and  taunts  them.  It  is  a  solemn  and  painful  subject, 
but  perhaps  this  text  rightly  pondered  may  help  to 

181 


182  THE  PROVERBS  [ch.  xiv. 

save  some  of  us  from  hearing  the  mocking  laugh  which 
echoes  through  the  empty  chambers  of  many  an  empty 
soul. 

I.  Sin  mocks  us  by  its  broken  promises. 

The  object  immediately  sought  by  any  wrong  act 
may  be  attained.  In  sins  of  sense,  the  appetite  is 
gratified ;  in  other  sins,  the  desire  that  urged  to  them 
attains  its  end.  But  what  then  ?  The  temptation  lay 
in  the  imagination  that,  the  wrong  thing  being  done, 
an  inward  good  would  result,  and  it  does  not ;  for  even 
if  the  immediate  object  be  secured,  other  results,  all 
unforeseen,  force  themselves  on  us  which  spoil  the 
hoped  for  good.  The  sickle  cuts  down  tares  as  well  as 
wheat,  and  the  reaper's  hands  are  filled  with  poisonous 
growths  as  well  as  with  corn.  There  is  a  revulsion  of 
feeling  from  the  thing  that  before  the  sin  was  done 
attracted.  The  hideous  story  of  the  sin  of  David's  son, 
Amnon,  puts  in  ugliest  shape  the  universal  experience 
of  men  who  are  tempted  to  sin  and  are  victims  of  the 
revulsion  that  follows — He  '  hated  her  exceedingly,  so 
that  the  hatred  wherewith  he  hated  her  was  greater 
than  the  love  wherewith  he  had  loved  her.'  Conscience, 
which  w^as  overpowered  and  unheard  amid  the  loud 
cries  of  desire,  speaks.  We  find  out  the  narrow  limits 
of  satisfaction.  The  satisfied  appetite  has  no  further 
driving  power,  but  lies  down  to  sleep  off  its  debauch, 
and  ceases  to  be  a  factor  for  the  time.  Inward  discord, 
the  schism  between  duty  and  inclination,  sets  up  strife 
in  the  very  sanctuary  of  the  soul.  We  are  dimly 
conscious  of  the  evil  done  as  robbing  us  of  power 
to  do  right.  We  cannot  pray,  and  would  be  glad  to 
forget  God.  And  a  self  thus  racked,  impoverished,  and 
weakened,  is  what  a  man  gains  by  the  sin  that  pro- 
mised him  so  much  and  hid  so  much  from  him. 


V.  9]  SIN  THE  MOCKER  183 

Or  if  these  consequences  are  in  any  measure  silenced 
and  stifled,  a  still  more  melancholy  mockery  betrays 
him,  in  the  continuance  of  the  illusion  that  he  is  happy 
and  all  is  well,  when  all  the  while  he  is  driving  head- 
long to  destruction.  Many  a  man  orders  his  life  so 
that  it  is  like  a  ship  that  sails  with  huzzas  and 
bedizened  with  flags  while  a  favouring  breeze  fills  its 
sails,  but  comes  back  to  port  battered  and  all  but 
waterlogged,  with  its  canvas  '  lean,  rent,  and  beggared 
by  the  strumpet  wind.'  It  is  always  a  mistake  to  try  to 
buy  happiness  by  doing  wrong.  The  price  is  rigorously 
demanded,  but  the  quid  pt^o  quo  is  not  given,  or  if  it 
seems  to  be  so,  there  is  something  else  given  too,  which 
takes  all  the  savour  out  of  the  composite  whole.  The 
•Folly'  of  the  earlier  half  of  this  book  woos  men  by 
her  sweet  invitations,  and  promises  the  sweetness  of 
stolen  waters  and  the  pleasantness  of  bread  eaten  in 
secret,  but  she  hides  the  fact,  which  the  listener  to  her 
seducing  voice  has  to  find  out  for  himself  after  he  has 
drunk  of  the  stolen  waters  and  tasted  the  maddening 
pleasantness  of  her  bread  eaten"  in  secret,  that  'her 
guests  are  in  the  depths  of  SheoL'  The  temptations 
that  seek  to  win  us  to  do  wrong  and  dazzle  us  by  fair 
visions  are  but  '  juggling  fiends  that  keep  the  word  of 
promise  to  the  ear,  and  break  it  to  the  hope.' 

II.  Sin  mocks  fools  by  making  them  its  slaves. 

There  is  not  only  a  revulsion  of  feeling  from  the  evil 
thing  done  that  was  so  tempting  before,  but  there  is  a 
dreadful  change  in  the  voice  of  the  temptress.  Before 
her  victim  had  done  the  sin,  she  whispered  hints  of 
how  little  a  thing  it  was.  '  Don't  make  such  a  moun- 
tain of  a  molehill.  It  is  a  very  small  matter.  You  can 
easily  give  it  up  when  you  like.'  But  when  the  deed  is 
done,  then  her  mocking  laugh  rings  out,  '  I  have  got 


184  THE  PROVERBS  [ch.xiv. 

you  now  and  you  cannot  get  away.'  The  prey  is 
seduced  into  the  trap  by  a  carefully  prepared  bait,  and 
as  soon  as  its  hesitating  foot  steps  on  to  the  slippery 
floor,  down  falls  the  door  and  escape  is  impossible. 
We  are  tempted  to  sin  by  the  delusion  that  we  are 
shaking  off  restraints  that  fetter  our  manhood,  and  that 
it  is  spirited  to  do  as  we  like,  and  as  soon  as  we  have 
sinned  we  discover  that  we  were  pleasing  not  ourselves 
but  a  taskmaster,  and  that  while  the  voice  said,  '  Show 
yourself  a  man,  beyond  these  petty,  old-fashioned 
maxims ' ;  the  meaning  of  it  was,  '  Become  my  slave.' 

Sin  grows  in  accordance  with  an  awful  necessity,  so 
that  it  is  never  in  a  sinner's  power  to  promise  himself 
•It  is  only  this  one  time  that  I  will  do  the  wrong 
thing.  Let  me  have  one  lapse  and  I  will  abjure  the 
evil  for  ever  after.'  We  have  to  reckon  with  the 
tremendous  power  of  habit,  and  to  bethink  ourselves 
that  a  man  may  never  commit  a  given  sin,  but  that  if 
he  has  committed  it  once,  it  is  all  but  impossible  that 
he  will  stop  there.  The  incline  is  too  slippery  and  the 
ice  too  smooth  to  risk  a  foot  on  it.  Habit  dominates, 
outward  circumstances  press,  there  springs  up  a  need 
for  repeating  the  draught,  and  for  its  being  more 
highly  spiced.  Sin  begets  sin  as  fast  as  the  green  flies 
which  infest  rose-bushes.  One  has  heard  of  slavers  on 
the  African  coast  speaking  negroes  fair,  and  tempting 
them  on  board  by  wonderful  promises,  but  once  the 
poor  creatures  are  in  the  ship,  then  on  with  the  hatches 
and,  if  need  be,  the  chains. 

III.  Sin  mocks  fools  by  unforeseen  consequences. 

These  are  carefully  concealed  or  madly  disregarded, 
while  we  are  in  the  stage  of  merely  being  tempted,  but 
when  we  have  done  the  evil,  they  are  unmasked,  like  a 
battery  against  a  detachment  that  has  been  trapped. 


V.9]  SIN  THE  MOCKER  186 

The  previous  denial  that  anything  will  come  of  the 
Bin,  and  the  subsequent  proclamation  that  this  ugly 
issue  has  come  of  it,  are  both  parts  of  sin's  mockery, 
and  one  knows  not  which  is  the  more  fiendish,  the 
laugh  with  which  she  promises  impunity  or  that  with 
which  she  tells  of  the  certainty  of  retribution.  We 
may  be  mocked,  but  '  God  is  not  mocked.  Whatever 
a  man  soweth,  that' — and  not  some  other  growth — 
'  shall  he  also  reap.'  We  dwell  in  an  all-related  order 
of  things,  in  which  no  act  but  has  its  appropriate 
consequences,  and  in  which  it  is  only  fools  who  say  to 
themselves,  '  I  did  not  think  it  would  matter  much.' 
Each  act  of  ours  is  at  once  sowing  and  reaping ;  a 
sowing,  inasmuch  as  it  sets  in  motion  a  train  the  issues 
of  which  may  not  be  realised  by  us  till  the  act  has  long 
been  forgotten;  a  reaping,  inasmuch  as  what  we  are 
and  do  to-day  is  the  product  of  what  we  were  and  did 
in  a  forgotten  past.  We  are  what  we  are,  because  we 
were  long  ago  what  we  were.  As  in  these  composite 
photographs,  which  are  produced  by  laying  one  indi- 
vidual likeness  on  another,  our  present  selves  have  our 
past  selves  preserved  in  them.  We  do  not  need  to 
bring  in  a  divine  Judge  into  human  life  in  order  to  be 
sure  that,  by  the  play  of  the  natural  laws  of  cause  and 
effect,  '  every  transgression  and  disobedience  receives 
its  just  recompense  of  reward.'  Given  the  world  as  it 
is,  and  the  continuous  identity  of  a  man,  and  you  have 
all  that  is  needed  for  an  Iliad  of  woes  flowing  from 
every  life  that  makes  terms  with  sin.  If  we  gather 
into  one  dismal  pile  the  weakening  of  power  for  good, 
the  strengthening  of  impulses  to  evil,  the  inward 
poverty,  the  unrest,  the  gnawings  of  conscience  or  its 
silence,  the  slavery  under  evil  often  loathed  even  while 
it  is  being  obeyed,  the  dreary  sense  of  inability  to  mend 


186  THE  PROVERBS  [ch.xiv. 

pneself,  and  often  the  wreck  of  outward  life  which 
dog  our  sins  like  sleuth-hounds,  surely  we  shall  not 
need  to  imagine  a  future  tribunal  in  order  to  be  sure 
that  sin  is  a  murderess,  or  to  hear  her  laugh  as  she 
mocks  her  helpless  victims. 

But  as  surely  as  there  are  in  this  present  world 
experiences  which  must  be  regarded  as  consequences 
of  sin,  so  surely  do  they  all  assume  a  more  dreadful 
character  and  take  on  the  office  of  prophets  of  a 
future.  If  man  lives  beyond  the  grave,  there  is  nothing 
to  suggest  that  he  will  there  put  off  character  as  he 
puts  off  the  bodily  life.  He  will  be  there  what  he  has 
made  himself  here.  Only  he  will  be  so  more  intensely, 
more  completely.  The  judgments  of  earth  foretell  and 
foreshadow  a  judgment  beyond  earth. 

There  is  but  one  more  word  that  I  would  say,  and  it 
is  this.  Jesus  has  come  to  set  the  captives  of  sin  free 
from  its  mockery,  its  tyranny,  its  worst  consequences. 
He  breaks  the  power  of  past  evil  to  domineer  over  us. 
He  gives  us  a  new  life  within,  which  has  no  heritage 
of  evil  to  pervert  it,  no  memories  of  evil  to  discourage 
it,  no  bias  towards  evil  to  lead  it  astray.  As  for  the 
sins  that  we  have  done.  He  is  ready  to  forgive,  to  seal 
to  us  God's  forgiveness,  and  to  take  from  our  own  self- 
condemnation  all  its  bitterness  and  much  of  its  hope- 
lessness. For  the  past,  His  blood  has  taken  away  its 
guilt  and  power.  For  the  future  it  sets  us  free  from 
the  mockery  of  our  sin,  and  assures  us  of  a  future 
which  will  not  be  weakened  or  pained  by  remembrances 
of  a  sinful  past.  Sin  mocks  at  fools,  but  they  who 
have  Christ  for  their  Redeemer,  their  Righteousness,  and 
their  Life  can  smile  at  her  impotent  rage,  and  mock  at 
her  and  her  impotent  attempts  to  terrify  them  and 
assert  her  lost  power  with  vain  threats. 


HOLLOW  LAUGHTER,  SOLID  JOY 

'  Even  in  laughter  the  heart  is  sorrowful ;  and  the  end  of  that  mirth  is  heavi- 
ness.'—Proverbs  xiv.  13. 

'  These  things  have  I  spoken  unto  you,  that  My  joy  may  be  in  you,  and  that  your 
joy  may  be  fulfilled.'— John  xv.  11  (R.V.). 

A  POET,  who  used  to  be  more  fashionable  than  he  is 
now,  pronounces  '  happiness '  to  be  our  being's  end  and 
aim.  That  is  not  true,  except  under  great  limitations 
and  with  many  explanations.  It  may  be  regarded  as 
God's  end,  but  it  is  ruinous  to  make  it  man's  aim.  It  is 
by  no  means  the  highest  conception  of  the  Gospel  to 
say  that  it  makes  men  happy,  however  true  it  may  be. 
The  highest  is  that  it  makes  them  good.  I  put  these 
two  texts  together,  not  only  because  they  bring  out  the 
contrast  between  the  laughter  which  is  hollow  and 
fleeting  and  the  joy  which  is  perfect  and  perpetual, 
but  also  because  they  suggest  to  us  the  difference  in 
kind  and  object  between  earthly  and  heavenly  joys ; 
which  difference  underlies  the  other  between  the 
boisterous  laughter  in  which  is  no  mirth  and  no  con- 
tinuance and  the  joy  which  is  deep  and  abiding. 

In  the  comparison  which  I  desire  to  make  between 
these  two  texts  we  must  begin  with  that  which  is 
deepest,  and  consider — 

I.  The  respective  objects  of  earthly  and  heavenly 

joy- 

Our  Lord's  wonderful  words  suggest  that  they  who 
accept  His  sayings,  that  they  who  have  His  word 
abiding  in  them,  have  in  a  very  deep  sense  His  joy 
implanted  in  their  hearts,  to  brighten  and  elevate  their 
joys  as  the  sunshine  flashes  into  silver  the  ripples  of 

187 


188  THE  PROVERBS  [ch.  xiv. 

the  lake.  What  then  were  the  sources  of  the  calm  joys 
of  '  the  Man  of  Sorrows '  ?  Surely  His  was  the  perfect 
instance  of  'rejoicing  in  the  Lord  always' — an  unbroken 
communion  with  the  Father.  The  consciousness  that 
the  divine  pleasure  ever  rested  on  Him,  and  that  all 
His  thoughts,  emotions,  purposes,  and  acts  were  in 
perfect  harmony  with  the  perfect  will  of  the  perfect 
God,  filled  His  humanity  up  to  the  very  brim  with 
gladness  which  the  world  could  not  take  away,  and 
which  remains  for  us  for  ever  as  a  type  to  which  all 
our  gladness  must  be  conformed  if  it  is  to  be  worthy  of 
Him  and  of  us.  As  one  of  the  Psalmists  says,  God  is  to 
be  *  the  gladness  of  our  joy.'  It  is  in  Him,  gazed  upon 
by  the  faith  and  love  of  an  obedient  spirit,  sought  after 
by  aspiration  and  possessed  inwardly  in  peaceful  com- 
munion, confirmed  by  union  with  Him  in  the  acts  of 
daily  obedience,  that  the  true  joy  of  every  human  life 
is  to  be  realised.  They  who  have  drunk  of  this  deep 
fountain  of  gladness  will  not  express  their  joy  in 
boisterous  laughter,  which  is  the  hoUower  the  louder 
it  is,  and  the  less  lasting  the  more  noisy,  but  will  mani- 
fest itself  '  in  the  depth  and  not  the  tumult  of  the  soul.' 

Nor  must  we  forget  that  '  My  joy '  co-existed  with  a 
profound  experience  of  sorrow  to  which  no  human 
sorrow  was  ever  like.  Let  us  not  forget  that,  while 
His  joy  filled  His  soul  to  the  brim.  He  was  '  acquainted 
with  grief ' ;  and  let  us  not  wonder  if  the  strange  sur- 
face contradiction  is  repeated  in  ourselves.  It  is  more 
Christlike  to  have  inexpressibly  deep  joy  with  surface 
sorrow,  than  to  have  a  shallow  laughter  m.asking  a 
hurtful  sorrow. 

We  have  to  set  the  sources  of  earthly  gladness  side 
by  side  with  those  of  Christ's  joy  to  be  aware  of  a  con- 
trast.   His  sprang  from  within,  the  world's  is  drawn 


V.  13]  LAUGHTER  AND  JOY  189 

from  without.  His  came  from  union  with  the  Father, 
the  world's  largely  depends  on  ignoring  God.  His 
needed  no  supplies  from  the  gratifications  ministered 
by  sense,  and  so  independent  of  the  presence  or  absence 
of  such;  the  world's  need  the  constant  contributions 
of  outward  good,  and  when  these  are  cut  off  they  droop 
and  die.  He  who  depends  on  outward  circumstances 
for  his  joy  is  the  slave  of  externals  and  the  sport  of 
time  and  chance. 

II.  The  Christian's  joy  is  full,  the  world's  partial. 

All  human  joys  touch  but  part  of  our  nature,  the 
divine  fills  and  satisfies  all.  In  the  former  there  is 
always  some  portion  of  us  unsatisfied,  like  the  deep  pits 
on  the  moon's  surface  into  which  no  light  shines,  and 
which  show  black  on  the  silver  face.  No  human  joys 
wait  to  still  conscience,  which  sits  at  the  banquet  like 
the  skeleton  that  Egyptian  feasters  set  at  their  tables. 
The  old  story  told  of  a  magician's  palace  blazing  with 
lighted  windows,  but  there  was  always  one  dark; — 
what  shrouded  figure  sat  behind  it?  Is  there  not 
always  a  surly  'elder  brother'  who  will  not  come  in 
however  the  musicians  may  pipe  and  the  servants 
dance  ?  Appetite  may  be  satisfied,  but  what  of  con- 
science, and  reason,  and  the  higher  aspirations  of  the 
soul?  The  laughter  that  echoes  through  the  soul  is 
the  hollo wer  the  louder  it  is,  and  reverberates  most 
through  empty  spaces. 

But  when  Christ's  joy  remains  in  us  our  joy  will  be 
full.  Its  flowing  tide  will  rush  into  and  placidly  occupy 
all  the  else  oozy  shallows  of  our  hearts,  even  into  the 
narrowest  crannies  its  penetrating  waters  will  pass,  and 
everywhere  will  bring  a  flashing  surface  that  will 
reflect  in  our  hearts  the  calm  blue  above.  We  need 
nothing  else  if  we  have  Christ  and  His  joy  within  us. 


190  THE  PROVERBS  [ch.  xiv. 

If  we  have  everything  else,  we  need  His  joy  within  us, 
else  ours  will  never  be  full. 

III.  The  heavenly  joys  are  perpetual,  the  earthly  joys 
transient. 

Many  of  our  earthly  joys  die  in  the  very  act  of  being 
enjoyed.  Those  which  depend  on  the  gratification  of 
some  appetite  expire  in  fruition,  and  at  each  recurrence 
are  less  and  less  complete.  The  influence  of  habit 
works  in  two  ways  to  rob  all  such  joys  of  their  power 
to  minister  to  us — it  increases  the  appetite  and  de- 
creases the  power  of  the  object  to  satisfy.  Some  are 
followed  by  swift  revulsion  and  remorse;  all  soon 
become  stale;  some  are  followed  by  quick  remorse; 
some  are  necessarily  left  behind  as  we  go  on  in  life. 
To  the  old  man  the  pleasures  of  youth  are  but  like 
children's  toys  long  since  outgrown  and  left  behind. 
All  are  at  the  mercy  of  externals.  Those  which  we 
have  not  left  we  have  to  leave.  The  saddest  lives  are 
those  of  pleasure-seekers,  and  the  saddest  deaths  are 
those  of  the  men  who  sought  for  joy  where  it  was  not 
to  be  found,  and  sought  for  their  gratification  in  a 
world  which  leaves  them,  and  which  they  have  to 
leave. 

There  is  a  realm  where  abide  *  fullness  of  joy  and 
pleasures  for  ever  more.'  Surely  they  order  their  lives 
most  wisely  who  look  for  their  joys  to  nothing  that 
earth  holds,  and  have  taken  for  their  own  the  ancient 
vow :  *  Though  the  fig-tree  shall  not  blossom,  neither 
shall  fruit  be  in  the  vine.  .  .  .  Yet  I  will  rejoice  in  the 
Lord,  I  will  joy  in  the  God  of  my  salvation.'  If  'My 
joy '  abides  in  us  in  its  calm  and  changeless  depth,  our 
joy  will  be  '  full '  whatever  our  circumstances  may  be ; 
and  we  shall  hear  at  last  the  welcome :  •  Enter  thou 
into  the  joy  of  thy  Lord.' 


SATISFIED  FROM  SELF 

* ...  A  good  man  shall  be  satisfied  from  himself.'— Proverbs  xiv.  14. 

At  first  sight  this  saying  strikes  one  as  somewhat 
unlike  the  ordinary  Scripture  tone,  and  savouring 
rather  of  a  Stoical  self-complacency;  but  we  recall 
parallel  sayings,  such  as  Christ's  words,  *  The  water 
that  I  shall  give  him  shall  be  in  him  a  well  of  water ' ; 
and  the  Apostle's,  'Then  shall  he  have  rejoicing  in 
himself  alone.'  We  further  note  that  the  text  has  an 
antithetic  parallel  in  the  preceding  clause,  where  the 
picture  is  drawn  of  '  a  backslider  in  heart,'  as  '  filled 
with  his  own  ways' ;  so  that  both  clauses  set  forth  the 
familiar  but  solemn  thought  that  a  man's  deeds  react 
upon  the  doer,  and  apart  from  all  thoughts  of  divine 
judgment,  themselves  bring  certain  retribution.  To 
grasp  the  inwardness  of  this  saying  we  must  note  that — 

I.  Goodness  comes  from  godliness. 

There  is  no  more  striking  proof  that  most  men  are 
bad  than  the  notion  which  they  have  of  what  is  good. 
The  word  has  been  degraded  to  mean  in  common  speech 
little  more  than  amiability,  and  is  applied  with  little 
discrimination  to  characters  of  which  little  more  can 
be  said  than  that  they  are  facile  and  indulgent  of  evil. 
•  A  good  fellow '  may  be  a  very  bad  man.  At  the 
highest  the  epithet  connotes  merely  more  or  less 
admirable  motives  and  more  or  less  admirable  deeds  as 
their  results,  whilst  often  its  use  is  no  more  than  a 
piece  of  unmeaning  politeness.  That  was  what  the 
young  ruler  meant  by  addressing  Christ  as  'Good 
Master';  and  Christ's  answer  to  him  set  him,  and 
should  set  us,  on  asking  ourselves  why  we  call  very 
ordinary  men  and  very  ordinary  actions  'good.'    The 


101 


192  THE  PROVERBS  [ch.  xiv. 

scriptural  notion  is  immensely  deeper,  and  the  scrip- 
tural employment  of  the  word  is  immensely  more 
restricted.  It  is  more  inward :  it  means  that  motives 
should  be  right  before  it  calls  any  action  good ;  it 
means  that  our  central  and  all-influencing  motive 
should  be  love  to  God  and  regard  to  His  will.  That  is 
the  Old  Testament  point  of  view  as  well  as  the  New.  Or 
to  put  it  in  other  words,  the  '  good  man '  of  the  Bible  is 
a  man  in  whom  outward  righteousness  flows  from 
inward  devotion  and  love  to  God.  These  two  elements 
make  up  the  character:  godliness  is  an  inseparable 
part  of  goodness,  is  the  inseparable  foundation  of 
goodness,  and  the  sole  condition  on  which  it  is  possible. 
But  from  this  conception  follows,  that  a  man  may 
be  truly  called  good,  although  not  perfect.  He  may  be 
so  and  yet  have  many  failures.  The  direction  of  his 
an)irations,  not  the  degree  to  which  these  are  fulfilled, 
aetermines  his  character,  and  his  right  to  be  reckoned 
a  good  man.  Why  was  David  called  '  a  man  after 
God's  own  heart,'  notwithstanding  his  frightful  fall? 
Was  it  not  because  that  sin  was  contrary  to  the  main 
direction  of  his  life,  and  because  he  had  struggled  to 
his  feet  again,  and  with  tears  and  self-abasement,  yet 
with  unconquerable  desire  and  hope,  'pressed  toward 
the  mark  for  the  prize  of  his  high  calling '  ?  David  in 
the  Old  Testament  and  Peter  in  the  New  bid  us  be  of 
good  cheer,  and  warn  us  against  the  too  common  error 
of  thinking  that  goodness  means  perfection.  'The 
new  moon  with  a  ragged  edge  '  is  even  in  its  imperfec- 
tions beautiful,  and  in  its  thinnest  circlet  prophesies  the 
perfect  round. 

Remembering  this  inseparable  connection  between 
godliness  and  goodness  we  further  note  that — 

II.  Godliness  brings  satisfaction. 


v.U]  SATISFIED  FROM  SELF  193 

There  is  a  grim  contrast  between  the  two  halves  of 
this  verse.  The  former  shows  us  the  backslider  in 
heart  as  filled  'with  his  own  ways.'  He  gets  weary 
with  satiety ;  with  his  doings  he  'will  be  sick  of  them'; 
and  the  things  which  at  first  delighted  will  finally 
disgust  and  be  done  without  zest.  There  is  nothing 
sadder  than  the  gloomy  faces  often  seen  in  the  world's 
festivals.  But,  on  the  other  hand,  the  godly  man  will 
be  satisfied  from  within.  This  is  no  Stoical  proclama- 
tion of  self-sufficingness.  Self  by  itself  satisfies  no 
man,  but  self,  become  the  abiding-place  of  God,  does 
satisfy.  A  man  alone  is  like  '  the  chaff  which  the  wind 
driveth  away ' ;  but,  rooted  in  God,  he  is  '  like  a  tree 
planted  by  the  rivers  of  water,  whose  leaf  does  not 
wither.'  He  has  found  all  that  he  needs.  God  is  no 
longer  without  him  but  within ;  and  he  who  can  say, 
'  I  live,  yet  not  I,  but  Christ  liveth  in  me,'  has  withii- 
him  the  secret  of  peace  and  the  source  of  satisfaction 
which  can  never  say  '  I  thirst.'  Such  an  inward  self, 
in  which  God  dwells  and  through  which  His  sweet 
presence  manifests  itself  in  the  renewed  nature,  sets 
man  free  from  all  dependence  for  blessedness  on 
externals.  We  hang  on  them  and  are  in  despair  if  we 
lose  them,  because  we  have  not  the  life  of  God  within 
us.  He  who  has  such  an  indwelling,  and  he  only,  can 
truly  say,  '  All  my  possessions  I  carry  with  me.'  Take 
him  and  strip  from  him,  film  after  film,  possessions, 
reputation,  friends ;  hack  him  limb  from  limb,  and  as 
long  as  there  is  body  enough  left  to  keep  life  in  him,  he 
can  say,  '  I  have  all  and  abound.'  '  Ye  took  joyfully 
the  spoiling  of  your  possessions,  knowing  that  ye  have 
your  own  selves  for  a  better  possession.' 

III.  Godly  goodness  brings  inward  satisfaction. 

No  man  is  satisfied  with  himself  until  he  has  sub- 

N 


194  THE  PROVERBS  [ch.xiv. 

jugated  himself.  What  makes  men  restless  and  dis- 
contented is  their  tossing,  anarchical  desires.  To  live 
by  impulse,  or  passion,  or  by  anything  but  love  to  God, 
is  to  make  ourselves  our  own  tormentors.  It  is  always 
true  that  he  '  who  loveth  his  life  shall  lose  it,'  and  loses 
it  by  the  very  act  of  loving  it.  Most  men's  lives  are 
like  the  troubled  sea,  'which  cannot  rest,'  and  whose 
tossing  surges,  alas!  'cast  up  mire  and  dirt,'  for  their 
restless  lives  bring  to  the  surface  much  that  was  meant 
to  lie  undisturbed  in  the  depths. 

But  he  who  has  subdued  himself  is  like  some  still 
lake  which  'heareth  not  the  loud  winds  when  they 
call,'  and  mirrors  the  silent  heavens  on  its  calm  surface. 
But  further,  goodness  brings  satisfaction,  because,  as 
the  Psalmist  says,  'in  keeping  Thy  commandments 
there  is  great  reward.'  There  is  a  glow  accompanying 
even  partial  obedience  which  diffuses  itself  with  grate- 
ful warmth  through  the  whole  being  of  a  man.  And 
such  goodness  tends  to  the  preservation  of  health  of 
soul  as  natural,  simple  living  to  the  health  of  the  body. 
And  that  general  sense  of  well-being  brings  with  it  a 
satisfaction  compared  with  which  all  the  feverish  bliss 
of  the  voluptuary  is  poor  indeed. 

But  we  must  not  forget  that  satisfaction  from  one's 
self  is  not  satisfaction  with  one's  self.  There  will 
always  be  the  imperfection  which  will  always  prevent 
self-righteousness.  The  good  man  after  the  Bible 
pattern  most  deeply  knows  his  faults,  and  in  that  very 
consciousness  is  there  a  deep  joy.  To  be  ever  aspiring 
onwards,  and  to  know  that  our  aspiration  is  no  vain 
dream,  this  is  joy.  Still  to  press  'toward  the  mark,' 
still  to  have  'the  yet  untroubled  world  which  gleams 
before  us  as  we  move,'  and  to  know  that  we  shall  attain 
if  we  follow  on,  this  is  the   highest  bliss.     Not   the 


V.14]      WHAT  GOD  THINKS  OF  ME        195 

accomplishment  of  our  ideal,  but  the  cherishing  of  it, 
is  the  true  delight  of  life. 

Such  self-satisfying  goodness  comes  only  through 
Christ.  He  makes  it  possible  for  us  to  love  God  and  to 
trust  Him.  Only  when  we  know  '  the  love  wherewith 
He  has  loved  us,'  shall  we  love  with  a  love  which  will 
be  the  motive  power  of  our  lives.  He  makes  it  pos- 
sible to  live  outward  lives  of  obedience,  which,  imper- 
fect as  it  is,  has  '  great  reward.'  He  makes  it  possible 
for  us  to  attain  the  yet  unattained,  and  to  be  sure  that 
we  '  shall  be  like  Him,  for  we  shall  see  Him  as  He  is.' 
He  has  said,  '  The  water  that  I  shall  give  him  shall  be 
in  him  a  well  of  water  springing  up  unto  everlasting 
life.'  Only  when  we  can  say,  '  I  live,  yet  not  I,  but 
Christ  liveth  in  me,'  will  it  be  true  of  us  in  its  fullest 
sense,  '  A  good  man  shall  be  satisfied  from  himself.' 


WHAT  I  THINK  OF  MYSELF  AND  WHAT 
GOD  THINKS  OF  ME 

All  the  ways  of  a  man  are  clean  in  his  own  eyes ;  but  the  Lord  weigheth  the 
spirits.'— Proverbs  xvi.  2. 

•  All  the  ways  of  a  man  '—then  there  is  no  such  thing 
as  being  conscious  of  having  gone  wrong,  and  having 
got  into  miry  and  foul  ways?  Of  course  there  is  ;  and 
equally  of  course  a  broad  statement  such  as  this  of 
my  text  is  not  to  be  pressed  into  literal  accuracy,  but 
is  a  simple,  general  assertion  of  what  we  all  know 
to  be  true,  that  we  have  a  strange  power  of  blinding 
ourselves  as  to  what  is  wrong  in  ourselves  and  in 
our  actions.  Part  of  the  cure  for  that  lies  in  the 
thought  in  the  second  clause  of  the  text — 'But  the 
Lord    weigheth   the   spirits.'      He   weighs   them  in  a 


196  THE  PROVERBS  [ch.  xvi. 

balance,  or  as  a  man  might  take  up  something  and 
poise  it  on  his  palm,  moving  his  hand  up  and  down 
till  his  muscles  by  their  resistance  gave  him  some 
inkling  of  its  weight.  But  what  is  it  that  God  weighs  ? 
'The  spirits.'  We  too  often  content  ourselves  with 
looking  at  our  ways;  God  looks  at  ourselves.  He 
takes  the  inner  man  into  account,  estimates  actions 
by  motives,  and  so  very  often  differs  from  our  judg- 
ment of  ourselves  and  of  one  another. 

Now  so  far  the  verse  of  my  text  carries  me,  and 
as  a  rule  we  have  to  keep  ourselves  within  the  limits 
of  each  verse  in  reading  this  Book  of  Proverbs,  for  two 
adjoining  verses  have  very  seldom  anything  to  do  with 
each  other.  But  in  the  present  case  they  have,  for  here 
is  what  follows :  '  Commit  thy  works  unto  the  Lord, 
and  thy  thoughts '  (about  thyself  and  everything  else) 
'  shall  be  established.'  That  is  to  say,  since  we  make 
such  terrible  blunders  about  the  moral  character  of 
our  own  works,  and  since  side  by  side  with  these 
erroneous  estimates  there  is  God's  absolutely  correct 
and  all  -  penetrating  one,  common  sense  says :  '  Put 
yourself  into  His  hands,  and  then  it  will  be  all  right.' 
So  we  consider  now  these  very  well-worn  and  familiar 
thoughts  as  to  our  strange  blunders  about  ourselves, 
as  to  the  contemporaneous  divine  estimate,  which  is 
absolutely  correct,  and  as  to  the  practical  issues  that 
come  from  two  facts. 

I.  Our  strange  power  of  blinding  ourselves. 

It  is  difficult  to  make  so  threadbare  a  commonplace 
at  all  impressive.  But  yet  if  we  would  only  take  this 
thought,  'AH  the  ways  of  a  man'— that  is  me— 'are 
right  in  his  own  eyes' — that  is,  my  eyes — and  apply 
it  directly  to  our  own  personal  experience  and  thoughts 
of   ourselves,  we  should  find   that,  like  every  other 


V.2]         WHAT  GOD  THINKS  OF  ME       197 

commonplace  of  morality  and  religion,  the  apparently 
toothless  generality  has  sharp  enough  teeth,  and  that 
the  trite  truth  flashes  up  into  strange  beauty,  and 
has  power  to  purify  and  guide  our  lives.  Some  one 
says  that  'recognised  truths  lie  bedridden  in  the  dor- 
mitory of  the  soul,  side  by  side  with  exploded  errors.' 
And  I  am  afraid  that  that  is  true  of  this  thought,  that 
we  cannot  truly  estimate  ourselves. 

'  All  the  ways  of  a  man  are  right  in  his  own  eyes.' 
For  to  begin  with,  we  all  know  that  there  is  nothing 
that  we  so  habitually  neglect  as  the  bringing  of  con- 
science to  bear  right  through  all  our  lives.  Sometimes 
it  is  because  there  is  a  temptation  that  appeals  very 
strongly,  perhaps  to  sense,  perhaps  to  some  strong 
inclination  which  has  been  strengthened  by  indulgence. 
And  when  the  craving  arises,  that  is  no  time  to  begin 
asking,  'Is  it  right,  or  is  it  wrong  to  yield?'  That 
question  stands  small  chance  of  being  wisely  con- 
sidered at  a  moment  when,  under  the  goading  of 
roused  desire,  a  man  is  like  a  mad  bull  when  it  charges. 
It  drops  its  head  and  shuts  its  eyes,  and  goes  right 
forward,  and  no  matter  whether  it  smashes  its  horns 
against  an  iron  gate,  and  damages  them  and  itself, 
or  not,  on  it  will  go.  So  when  great  temptations  rise — 
and  we  all  know  such  times  in  our  lives — we  are  in 
no  condition  to  discuss  that  question  with  ourselves. 
Sometimes  the  craving  is  so  vehement  that  if  we  could 
not  get  this  thing  that  we  want  without  putting  our 
hands  through  the  sulphurous  smoke  of  the  bottomless 
pit,  we  should  thrust  them  out  to  grasp  it.  But  in 
regard  to  the  smaller  commonplace  matters  of  daily 
life,  too,  we  all  know  that  there  are  whole  regions  of 
our  lives  which  seem  to  us  to  be  so  small  that  it  is 
hardly  worth  while  summoning  the  august  thought 


198  THE  PROVERBS  [ch.xvi. 

of  'right  or  wrong?'  to  decide  them.  Yes,  and  a 
thousand  smugglers  that  go  across  a  frontier,  each 
with  a  little  package  of  contraband  goods  that  does 
not  pay  any  duty,  make  a  large  aggregate  at  the 
year's  end.  It  is  the  trifles  of  life  that  shape  life, 
and  it  is  to  them  that  we  so  frequently  fail  in  applying, 
honestly  and  rigidly,  the  test, '  Is  this  right  or  wrong?' 
'He  that  is  faithful  in  that  which  is  least,'  and  con- 
scientious down  to  the  smallest  things,  *  is  faithful  also 
in  much.'  The  legal  maxim  has  it, '  The  law  does  not 
care  about  the  very  smallest  matters.'  What  that 
precisely  means,  as  a  legal  maxim,  I  do  not  profess 
to  know,  but  it  is  rank  heresy  in  regard  to  conduct 
and  morality.  Look  after  the  pennies,  and  the  pounds 
will  look  after  themselves.  Get  the  habit  of  bringing 
conscience  to  bear  on  little  things,  or  you  will  never 
be  able  to  bring  it  to  bear  when  great  temptations 
come  and  the  crises  emerge  in  your  lives.  Thus,  by 
reason  of  that  deficiency  in  the  habitual  application 
of  conscience  to  our  lives,  we  slide  through,  and  take 
for  granted  that  all  our  ways  are  right  in  our  eyes. 

Then  there  is  another  thing:  we  not  only  neglect 
the  rigid  application  of  conscience  to  all  our  lives,  but 
we  have  a  double  standard,  and  the  notion  of  right 
and  wrong  which  we  apply  to  our  neighbours  is  very 
different  from  that  which  we  apply  to  ourselves.  No 
wonder  that  the  criminal  is  acquitted,  and  goes  away 
from  the  tribunal  'without  a  stain  on  his  character,' 
when  he  is  his  own  judge  and  jury.  'AH  the  ways 
of  a  man  are  right  in  his  own  eyes,'  but  the  very  same 
'  ways '  that  you  allow  to  pass  muster  and  condone  in 
yourselves,  you  visit  with  sharp  and  unfailing  censure 
in  others.  That  strange  self-complacency  which  we 
have,  which    is    perfectly    undisturbed    by  the    most 


V.2]        WHAT  GOD  THINKS  OF  ME       199 

general  confessions  of  sinfulness,  and  only  shies  when 
it  is  brought  up  to  particular  details  of  faults,  we  all 
know  is  very  deep  in  ourselves. 

Then  there  is  another  thing  to  be  remembered,  and 
that  is — the  enormous  and  th^  tragical  influence  of 
habit  in  dulling  the  mirror  of  our  souls,  on  which  our 
deeds  are  reflected  in  their  true  image.  There  are 
places  in  Europe  where  the  peasantry  have  become 
so  accustomed  to  minute  and  constantly  repeated  doses 
of  arsenic  that  it  is  actually  a  minister  of  health  to 
them,  and  what  would  poison  you  is  food  for  them. 
We  all  know  that  we  may  sit  in  a  hall  like  this, 
packed  full  and  steaming,  while  the  condensed  breath 
is  running  down  the  windows,  and  never  be  aware 
of  the  foulness  of  the  odours  and  the  air.  But  when 
we  go  out  and  feel  the  sweet,  pure  breath  of  the  un- 
polluted atmosphere,  then  we  know  how  habit  has 
dulled  the  lungs.  And  so  habit  dulls  the  conscience. 
According  to  the  old  saying,  the  man  that  began  by 
carrying  a  calf  can  carry  an  ox  at  the  end,  and  feel 
no  burden.  What  we  are  accustomed  to  do  we  scarcely 
ever  recognise  to  be  wrong,  and  it  is  these  things 
which  pass  because  they  are  habitual  that  do  more  to 
wreck  lives  than  occasional  outbursts  of  far  worse 
evils,  according  to  the  world's  estimate  of  them.  Habit 
dulls  the  eye. 

Yes;  and  more  than  that,  the  conscience  needs 
educating  just  as  much  as  any  other  faculty.  A  man 
says,  'My  conscience  acquits  me';  then  the  question 
is,  '  And  what  sort  of  a  conscience  have  you  got,  if  it 
acquits  you  ? '  All  that  your  conscience  says  is,  '  It  is 
right  to  do  what  is  right,  it  is  wrong  to  do  what  is 
wrong.'  But  for  the  explanation  of  what  is  wrong 
and  what  is  right  you  have   to   go   somewhere  else 


200  THE  PROVERBS  [ch.xvi. 

than  to  your  consciences.  You  have  to  go  to  your 
reason,  and  your  judgment,  and  your  common  sense, 
and  a  hundred  other  sources.  And  then,  when  you 
have  found  out  what  is  right  and  what  is  wrong,  you 
will  hear  the  voice  saying,  'Do  that,  and  do  not  do 
this.'  Every  one  of  us  has  faults  that  we  know  nothing 
about,  and  that  we  bring  up  to  the  tribunal  of  our 
consciences,  and  wipe  our  mouths  and  say,  'We  have 
done  no  harm.'  '  I  thought  within  myself  that  I  verily 
ought  to  do  many  things  contrary  to  the  name  of 
Jesus  of  Nazareth.'  'They  think  that  they  do  God 
service.'  Many  things  that  seem  to  us  virtues  are 
vices. 

And  as  for  the  individual  so  for  the  community. 
The  perception  of  what  is  right  and  what  is  wrong 
needs  long  educating.  When  I  was  a  boy  the  whole 
Christian  Church  of  America,  with  one  voice,  declared 
that  'slavery  was  a  patriarchal  institution  appointed 
by  God.'  The  Christian  Church  of  to-day  has  not 
awakened  either  to  the  sin  of  war  or  of  drink.  And 
I  have  not  the  smallest  doubt  that  there  are  hosts 
of  things  which  public  opinion,  and  Christian  public 
opinion,  regards  to-day  as  perfectly  allowable  and 
innocent,  and,  perhaps,  even  praiseworthy,  and  over 
which  it  will  ask  God's  blessing,  at  which,  in  a  hundred 
years  our  descendants  will  hold  up  their  hands  in 
wonder,  and  say,  'How  did  good  people — and  good 
people  they  no  doubt  were — tolerate  such  a  condition 
of  things  for  a  moment  ? '  '  All  a  man's  ways  are  right 
in  his  own  eyes,'  and  he  needs  a  great  deal  of  teaching 
before  he  comes  to  understand  what,  according  to 
God's  will,  really  is  right  and  what  is  wrong. 

Now  let  me  turn  for  a  moment  to  the  contrasted 
picture,  with  which  I  can  only  deal  in  a  sentence  or  two. 


V.2]         WHAT  GOD  THINKS  OF  ME      201 

II.  The  divine  estimate. 

I  have  already  pointed  out  the  two  emphatic  thoughts 
that  lie  in  that  clause, '  God  weigheth,'  and  '  weigheth 
the  spirits.'  I  need  not  repeat  what  I  said,  in  the 
introduction  to  these  remarks,  upon  this  subject.  Just 
let  us  take  with  us  these  two  thoughts,  that  the  same 
actions  which  we  sometimes  test,  in  our  very  defective 
and  loaded  balances,  have  also  to  go  into  the  infallible 
scales,  and  that  the  actions  go  with  their  interpretation 
in  their  motive.  'God  weighs  the  spirits.'  He  reads 
what  we  do  by  His  knowledge  of  what  we  are.  We 
reveal  to  one  another  what  we  are  by  what  we  do, 
and,  as  is  a  commonplace,  none  of  us  can  penetrate, 
except  very  superficially  and  often  inaccurately,  to  the 
motives  that  actuate.  But  the  motive  is  three-fourths 
of  the  action.  God  does  not  go  from  without,  as  it 
were,  inwards ;  from  our  actions  to  estimate  our  char- 
acters; but  He  starts  with  the  character  and  the 
motive — the  habitual  character  and  the  occasional 
motive — and  by  these  He  reads  the  deed.  He  weighs, 
ponders,  penetrates  to  the  heart  of  the  thing,  and  He 
weighs  the  spirits. 

So  on  the  one  hand,  *I  obtained  mercy,  because  I 
did  it  ignorantly  in  unbelief,'  and  many  a  deed  which 
the  world  would  condemn,  and  in  which  we  onlookers 
would  see  evil,  God  does  not  wholly  condemn,  because 
He,  being  the  Inlooker  as  well  as  the  Onlooker,  sees 
the  albeit  mistaken  yet  pure  motives  that  underlay 
it.  So  it  is  conceivable  that  the  inquisitor,  and  the 
heretic  that  he  sent  to  the  stake,  may  stand  side  by 
side  in  God's  estimate;  the  one  if  he  were  actuated 
by  pure  zeal  for  the  truth,  the  other  because  he  was 
actuated  by  self-sacrifice  in  loyalty  to  his  Lord.  And, 
on  the  other  hand,  many  a  deed  that  goes  flaunting 


202  THE  PROVERBS  [ch.  xvi. 

through  the  world  in  '  purple  and  fine  linen '  will  be 
stripped  of  its  gauds,  and  stand  naked  and  ugly  before 
the  eyes  of  'Him  with  whom  we  have  to  do.'  He 
'  weighs  the  spirits.' 

Lastly,  a  word  about — 

III.  The  practical  issues  of  these  thoughts. 

'Commit  thy  works  unto  the  Lord' — that  is  to  say, 
do  not  be  too  sure  that  you  are  right  because  you  do 
not  think  you  are  wrong.  We  should  be  very  dis- 
trustful of  our  own  judgments  of  ourselves,  especially 
when  that  judgment  permits  us  to  do  certain  things. 
'I  know  nothing  against  myself,'  said  the  Apostle, 
'  yet  am  I  not  hereby  justified.'  And  again,  still  more 
emphatically,  he  lays  down  the  principle  that  I  would 
have  liked  to  have  enlarged  upon  if  I  had  had  time. 
'  Happy  is  he  that  condemneth  not  himself  in  the  things 
which  he  alloweth.'  You  may  have  made  the  glove 
too  easy  by  stretching.  It  is  possible  that  you  may 
think  that  something  is  permissible  and  right  which 
a  wiser  and  more  rigid  and  Christlike  judgment  of 
yourself  would  have  taught  you  was  wrong.  Look 
under  the  stones  for  the  reptiles,  and  remember  the 
prayer,  'Cleanse  thou  me  from  secret  faults,'  and 
distrust  a  permitting  and  easy  conscience. 

Then,  again,  let  us  seek  the  divine  strengthening 
and  illumination.  We  have  to  seek  that  in  some  very 
plain  ways.  Seek  it  by  prayer.  There  is  nothing  so 
powerful  in  stripping  off  from  our  besetting  sins  their 
disguises  and  masks  as  to  go  to  God  with  the  honest 
petition:  'Search  me  .  .  .  and  try  me  .  .  .  and  see  if 
there  be  any  wicked  way  in  me,  and  lead  me  in  the 
way  everlasting.'  Brethren !  if  we  will  do  that,  we 
shall  get  answers  that  will  startle  us,  that  will  humble 
us,  but  that  will  be  blessed  beyond  all  other  blessedness, 


V.2]        WHAT  GOD  THINKS  OF  ME       203 

and  will  bring  to  light  the  '  hidden  things  of  darkness.' 
Then,  after  they  are  brought  to  light  and  cast  out, 
<■  then  shall  every  man  have  praise  of  God.' 

We  ought  to  keep  ourselves  in  very  close  union  with 
Jesus  Christ,  because  if  we  cling  to  Him  in  simple 
faith,  He  will  come  into  our  hearts,  and  we  shall  be 
saved  from  walking  in  darkness,  and  have  the  light 
of  life  shining  down  upon  our  deeds.  Christ  is  the 
conscience  of  the  Christian  man's  conscience,  who,  by 
His  voice  in  the  hearts  that  wait  upon  Him,  says,  '  Do 
this,'  and  they  do  it.  It  is  when  He  is  in  our  spirits 
that  our  estimate  of  ourselves  is  set  right,  and  that 
we  hear  the  voice  saying,  'This  is  the  way,  walk  ye 
in  it';  and  not  merely  do  we  hear  the  voice,  but  we 
get  help  to  our  feet  in  running  in  the  way  of  His 
commandments,  with  enlarged  and  confirmed  hearts. 
Brethren!  for  the  discovery  of  our  faults,  which  we 
ought  all  to  long  for,  and  for  the  conquest  of  these 
discovered  faults,  which,  if  we  are  Christians,  we  do 
long  for,  our  confidence  is  in  Him.  And  if  you  trust 
Him,  'the  blood  of  Christ  will  cleanse' — because  it 
comes  into  our  life's  blood — '  from  all  sin.' 

And  the  last  thing  that  I  would  say  is  this.  We  must 
punctiliously  obey  every  dictate  that  speaks  in  our 
own  consciences,  especially  when  it  urges  us  to  un- 
welcome duties  or  restrains  us  from  too  welcome  sins. 
*  To  him  that  hath  shall  be  given ' — and  the  sure  way 
to  condemn  ourselves  to  utter  blindness  as  to  our  true 
selves  is  to  pay  no  attention  to  the  glimmers  of  light 
that  we  have,  whilst,  on  the  other  hand,  the  sure  way 
to  be  led  into  fuller  illumination  is  to  follow  faith- 
fully whatsoever  sparkles  of  light  may  shine  upon  our 
hearts.  *  Do  the  duty  that  lies  nearest  thee.'  Put  thy 
trust  in  Jesus  Christ.    Distrust  thine  own  approbation 


204  THE  PROVERBS  [ch.  xvi. 

or  condonation  of  thine  actions,  and  ever  turn  to  Him 
and  say,  '  Show  me  what  to  do,  and  make  me  willing 
and  fit  to  do  it.'  Then  there  will  be  little  contrariety 
between  your  estimate  of  your  ways  and  God's  judg- 
ments of  your  spirits. 


A  BUNDLE  OF  PROVERBS 

'  Understanding  is  a  wellspring  of  life  unto  him  that  hath  it :  but  the  instruction 
of  fools  is  folly.  23.  The  heart  of  the  wise  teacheth  his  mouth,  and  addeth  learning 
to  his  lips.  24.  Pleasant  words  are  as  an  honeycomb,  sweet  to  the  soul,  and  health 
to  the  bones.  25.  There  is  a  way  that  seemeth  right  unto  a  man,  but  the  end 
thereof  are  the  ways  of  death.  26.  He  that  laboureth  laboureth  for  himself ;  for 
his  mouth  craveth  it  of  him.  27.  An  ungodly  man  diggeth  up  evil :  and  in  his  lips 
there  is  as  a  burning  fire.  28.  A  froward  man  soweth  strife :  and  a  whisperer 
separateth  chief  friends.  29.  A  violent  man  enticeth  his  neighbour,  and  leadeth 
him  into  the  way  that  is  not  good.  30.  He  shutteth  his  eyes  to  devise  froward 
things :  moving  his  lips  he  bringeth  evil  to  pass.  31.  The  hoary  head  is  a  crown  of 
glory,  if  it  be  foiind  in  the  way  of  righteousness.  32.  He  that  is  slow  to  anger  is 
better  than  the  mighty ;  and  he  that  ruleth  his  spirit  than  he  that  taketh  a  city. 
33.  The  lot  is  cast  into  the  lap;  but  the  whole  disposing  thereof  is  of  the  Lord.'— 
Proverbs  xvi.  22-33. 

A  SLIGHT  thread  of  connection  may  be  traced  in  some  of 
the  proverbs  in  this  passage.  Verse  22,  with  its  praise 
of  'Wisdom,'  introduces  one  instance  of  Wisdom's  ex- 
cellence in  verse  23,  and  that  again,  with  its  reference 
to  speech,  leads  on  to  verse  24  and  its  commendation 
of  'pleasant  words.'  Similarly,  verses  27-30  give  four 
pictures  of  vice,  three  of  them  beginning  with  '  a  man.' 
We  may  note,  too,  that,  starting  with  verse  26,  every 
verse  till  verse  30  refers  to  some  work  of  '  the  mouth ' 
or  '  lips.' 

The  passage  begins  with  one  phase  of  the  contrast 
between  Wisdom  and  Folly,  which  this  book  is  never 
weary  of  emphasising  and  underscoring.  We  shall 
miss  the  force  of  its  most  characteristic  teaching  unless 
we  keep  well  in  mind  that  the  two  opposites  of  Wisdom 
and  Folly  do  not  refer  only  or  chiefly  to  intellectual 
distinctions.     The  very  basis  of  '  Wisdom,'  as  this  book 


vs.  22-33]    A  BUNDLE  OF  PROVERBS         205 

conceives  it,  is  the  'fear  of  the  Lord,'  without  which 
the  man  of  biggest,  clearest  brain,  and  most  richly 
stored  mind,  is,  in  its  judgment,  '  a  fool.'  Such  *  under- 
standing,' which  apprehends  and  rightly  deals  with  the 
deepest  fact  of  life,  our  relation  to  God  and  to  His  law, 
is  a  '  well-spring  of  life.'  The  figure  speaks  still  more 
eloquently  to  Easterns  than  to  us.  In  those  hot  lands 
the  cool  spring,  bursting  through  the  baked  rocks  or 
burning  sand,  makes  the  difference  between  barrenness 
and  fertility,  the  death  of  all  green  things  and  life.  So 
where  true  Wisdom  is  deep  in  a  heart,  it  will  come 
flashing  up  into  sunshine,  and  will  quicken  the  seeds  of 
all  good  as  it  flows  through  the  deeds.  '  Everything 
liveth  whithersoever  the  river  cometh.'  Productiveness, 
refreshment,  the  beauty  of  the  sparkling  wavelets,  the 
music  of  their  ripples  against  the  stones,  and  all  the 
other  blessings  and  delights  of  a  perpetual  fountain, 
have  better  things  corresponding  to  them  in  the  life 
of  the  man  who  is  wise  with  the  true  Wisdom  which 
begins  with  the  fear  of  God.  Just  as  it  is  active  in  the 
life,  so  is  Folly.  But  its  activity  is  not  blessing  and 
gladdening,  but  punitive.  For  all  sin  automatically 
works  its  own  chastisement,  and  the  curse  of  Folly  is 
that,  while  it  corrects,  it  prevents  the  'fool'  from 
profiting  by  the  correction.  Since  it  punishes  itself, 
one  might  expect  that  it  would  cure  itself,  but  experi- 
ence shows  that,  while  it  wields  a  rod,  its  subjects 
'receive  no  correction.'  That  insensibility  is  the 
paradox  and  the  Nemesis  of  '  Folly.' 

The  Old  Testament  ethics  are  remarkable  for  their 
solemn  sense  of  the  importance  of  words,  and  Proverbs 
shares  in  that  sense  to  the  full.  In  some  aspects, 
speech  is  a  more  perfect  self-revelation  than  act.  So 
the  outflow  of  the  fountain  in  words  comes  next.    Wise 


206  THE  PROVERBS  [ch.  xvi. 

heart  makes  wise  speech.  That  may  be  looked  at  in 
two  ways.  It  may  point  to  the  utterance  by  word  as 
the  most  precious,  and  incumbent  on  its  possessor,  of 
all  the  ways  of  manifesting  Wisdom ;  or  it  may  point 
to  the  only  source  of  real  '  learning,' — namely,  a  wise 
heart.  In  the  former  view,  it  teaches  us  our  solemn 
obligation  not  to  hide  our  light  under  a  bushel,  but  to 
speak  boldly  and  lovingly  all  the  truth  which  God  has 
taught  us.  A  dumb  Christian  is  a  monstrosity.  We 
are  bound  to  give  voice  to  our  'Wisdom.'  In  the  other 
aspect,  it  reminds  us  that  there  is  a  better  way  of 
getting  Wisdom  than  by  many  books, — namely,  by 
filling  our  hearts,  through  communion  with  God,  with 
His  own  will.  Then,  whether  we  have  worldly  '  learn- 
ing '  or  no,  we  shall  be  able  to  instruct  many,  and  lead 
them  to  the  light  which  has  shone  on  us. 

There  are  many  kinds  of  pleasant  words,  some  of 
which  are  not  like  '  honey,'  but  like  poison  hid  in  jam. 
Insincere  compliments,  flatteries  when  rebukes  would 
be  fitting,  and  all  the  brood  of  civil  conventionalities, 
are  not  the  words  meant  here.  Truly  pleasant  ones 
are  those  which  come  from  true  Wisdom,  and  may 
often  have  a  surface  of  bitterness  like  the  prophet's 
roll,  but  have  a  core  of  sweetness.  It  is  a  great  thing 
to  be  able  to  speak  necessary  and  unwelcome  truths 
with  lips  into  which  grace  is  poured.  A  spoonful  of 
honey  catches  more  flies  than  a  hogshead  of  vinegar. 

Verse  25  has  no  connection  with  its  context.  It 
teaches  two  solemn  truths,  according  to  the  possible 
double  meaning  of  'right.'  If  that  word  means  ethi- 
cally right,  then  the  saying  sets  forth  the  terrible 
possibility  of  conscience  being  wrongly  instructed,  and 
sanctioning  gross  sin.  If  it  means  only  straight,  or 
level— that  is,  successful  and  easy — the  saying  enforces 


vs.  22-33]     A  BUNDLE  OF  PROVERBS       207 

the  not  less  solemn  truth  that  sin  deceives  as  to  its 
results,  and  that  the  path  of  wrong-doing,  which  is 
flowery  and  smooth  at  first,  grows  rapidly  thorny,  and 
goes  fast  downhill,  and  ends  at  last  in  a  cul-de-sac,  of 
which  death  is  the  only  outlet.  We  are  not  to  trust 
our  own  consciences,  except  as  enlightened  by  God's 
Word.  We  are  not  to  listen  to  sin's  lies,  but  to  fix  it 
well  in  our  minds  that  there  is  only  one  way  which 
leads  to  life  and  peace,  the  narrow  way  of  faith  and 
obedience. 

The  Revised  Version's  rendering  of  verse  26  gives  the 
right  idea.  '  The  appetite,'  or  hunger,  '  of  the  labourer 
labours  for  him '  (that  is,  the  need  of  food  is  the  main- 
spring of  work),  and  it  lightens  the  work  to  which  it 
impels.  So  hunger  is  a  blessing.  That  is  true  in  regard 
to  the  body.  The  manifold  material  industries  of  men 
are,  at  bottom,  prompted  by  the  need  to  earn  something 
to  eat.  The  craving  which  drives  to  such  results  is  a 
thing  to  be  thankful  for.  It  is  better  to  live  where  toil 
is  needful  to  sustain  life  than  in  lazy  lands  where  an 
hour's  work  will  provide  food  for  a  week.  But  the 
saying  reaches  to  spiritual  desires,  and  anticipates 
the  beatitude  on  those  who  'hunger  and  thirst  after 
righteousness.'  Happy  they  who  feel  that  craving,  and 
are  driven  by  it  to  the  labour  for  the  bread  which  comes 
down  from  heaven  !  '  This  is  the  work  of  God,  that  ye 
believe  on  Him  whom  He  hath  sent.' 

The  next  three  proverbs  (vs.  27-29)  give  three  pictures 
of  different  types  of  bad  men.  First,  we  have  'the 
worthless  man '  (Rev.  Ver.),  literally  '  a  man  of  Belial,' 
which  last  word  probably  means  worthlessness.  His 
work  is  '  digging  evil ' ;  his  words  are  like  scorching 
fire.  To  dig  evil  seems  to  have  a  wider  sense  than  has 
digging  a  pit  for  others  (Ps.  vii.  15),  which  is  usually 


208  THE  PROVERBS  [ch.xvi. 

taken  as  a  parallel.  The  man  is  not  merely  malicious 
toward  others,  but  his  whole  activity  goes  to  further 
evil.  It  is  the  material  in  which  he  delights  to  work. 
What  mistaken  spade  husbandry  it  is  to  spend  labour 
on  such  a  soil !  What  can  it  grow  but  thistles  and 
poisonous  plants?  His  words  are  as  bad  as  his  deeds. 
No  honey  drops  from  his  lips,  but  scorching  fire,  which 
burns  up  not  only  reputations  but  tries  to  consume  all 
that  is  good.  As  James  says,  such  a  tongue  is  '  set  on 
fire  of  hell.'  The  picture  is  that  of  a  man  bad  through 
and  through.  But  there  may  be  indefinitely  close 
approximations  to  it,  and  no  man  can  say,  'Thus  far 
will  I  go  in  evil  ways,  and  no  further.' 

The  second  picture  is  of  a  more  specific  kind.  The 
'fro ward  man'  here  seems  to  be  the  same  as  the 
slanderer  in  the  next  clause.  He  utters  perverse  things, 
and  so  soweth  strife  and  parts  friends.  There  are 
people  whose  mouths  are  as  full  of  malicious  whispers 
as  a  sower's  basket  is  of  seed,  and  who  have  a  base 
delight  in  flinging  them  broadcast.  Sometimes  they 
do  not  think  of  what  the  harvest  will  be,  but  often 
they  chuckle  to  see  it  springing  in  the  mistrust  and 
alienation  of  former  friends.  A  loose  tongue  often 
does  as  much  harm  as  a  bitter  one,  and  delight  in 
dwelling  on  people's  faults  is  not  innocent  because  the 
tattler  did  not  think  of  the  mischief  he  was  setting 
agoing. 

In  verse  29  another  type  of  evil-doer  is  outlined 
— the  opposite,  in  some  respects,  of  the  preceding.  The 
slanderer  works  secretly ;  this  mischief-maker  goes  the 
plain  way  to  work.  He  uses  physical  force  or  '  violence.' 
But  how  does  that  fit  in  with  '  enticeth '  ?  It  may  be  that 
the  enticement  of  his  victim  into  a  place  suitable  for 
robbing  or  murder  is  meant,  but  more  probably  there 


vs.  22-33]    A  BUNDLE  OF  PROVERBS        209 

is  here  the  same  combination  of  force  and  craft  as  in 
chapter  i.  10-14.  Criminals  have  a  wricked  delight  in 
tempting  innocent  people  to  join  their  gangs.  A  law- 
less desperado  is  a  hotbed  of  infection. 

Verse  30  draws  a  portrait  of  a  bad  man.  It  is  a  bit 
of  homely  physiognomical  observation.  A  man  with  a 
trick  of  closing  his  eyes  has  something  working  in  his 
head ;  and,  if  he  is  one  of  these  types  of  men,  one  may 
be  sure  that  he  is  brewing  mischief.  Compressed  lips 
mean  concentrated  effort,  or  fixed  resolve,  or  suppressed 
feeling,  and  in  any  of  these  cases  are  as  a  danger 
signal,  warning  that  the  man  is  at  work  on  some  evil 
deed. 

Two  sayings  follow,  which  contrast  goodness  with 
the  evils  just  described.  The  'if  in  verse  31  weakens 
the  strong  assertion  of  the  proverb.  'The  hoary 
head  is  a  crown  of  glory;  it  is  found  in  the  way  of 
righteousness.'  That  is  but  putting  into  picturesque 
form  the  Old  Testament  promise  of  long  life  to  the 
righteous — a  promise  which  is  not  repeated  in  the  new 
dispensation,  but  which  is  still  often  realised.  '  Whom 
the  gods  love,  die  young,'  is  a  heathen  proverb;  but 
there  is  a  natural  tendency  in  the  manner  of  life 
which  Christianity  produces  to  prolong  a  man's  days. 
A  heart  at  peace,  because  stayed  on  God,  passions  held 
well  in  hand,  an  avoidance  of  excesses  which  eat  away 
strength,  do  tend  to  length  of  life,  and  the  opposites  of 
these  do  tend  to  shorten  it.  How  many  young  men  go 
home  from  our  great  cities  every  year,  with  their 
•  bones  full  of  the  iniquities  of  their  youth,'  to  die ! 

If  we  are  to  tread  the  way  of  righteousness,  and  so 
come  to  •  reverence  and  the  silver  hair,'  we  must  govern 
ourselves.  So  the  next  proverb  extols  the  ruler  of  his 
own  spirit  as  '  more  than  conquerors,'  whose  triumphs 

o 


210  THE  PROVERBS  [ch.  xviii. 

are  won  in  such  vulgar  fields  as  battles  and  sieges. 
Our  sorest  fights  and  our  noblest  victories  are  within. 

'  Unless  above  himself  he  can 
Erect  himself,  how  poor  a  thing  is  man  ! ' 

Verse  31  takes  the  casting  of  the  lot  as  one  instance 
of  the  limitation  of  all  human  effort,  in  all  which  we 
can  but  use  the  appropriate  means,  while  the  whole 
issue  must  be  left  in  God's  hands.  The  Jewish  law  did 
not  enjoin  the  lot,  but  its  use  seems  to  have  been 
frequent.  The  proverb  presents  in  the  sharpest  relief 
a  principle  which  is  true  of  all  our  activity.  The  old 
proverb-maker  knew  nothing  of  chance.  To  him  there 
were  but  two  real  moving  forces  in  the  world — man 
and  God.  To  the  one  belonged  sowing  the  seed,  doing 
his  part,  whether  casting  the  lot  or  toiling  at  his  task. 
His  force  was  real,  but  derived  and  limited.  Efforts 
and  attempts  are  ours  ;  results  are  God's.  We  sow ;  He 
'  gives  it  a  body  as  it  pleases  Him.'  Nothing  happens 
by  accident.  Man's  little  province  is  bounded  on  all 
sides  by  God's,  and  the  two  touch.  There  is  no  neutral 
territory  between,  where  godless  chance  rules. 


TWO  FORTRESSES 

'  The  name  of  the  Lord  is  a  strong  tower :  the  righteous  runneth  into  it,  and  i« 
safe.  U.  The  rich  man's  wealth  is  his  strong  city,  and  as  an  high  wall  in  his  own 
conceit.'— Pkoverbs  xviii.  10, 11. 

The  mere  reading  of  these  two  verses  shows  that, 
contrary  to  the  usual  rule  in  the  Book  of  Proverbs, 
they  have  a  bearing  on  each  other.  They  are  intended 
to  suggest  a  very  strong  contrast,  and  that  contrast  is 
even  more  emphatic  in  the  original  than  in  our  translfi- 
tion;  because,  as  the  margin  of  your  Bibles  will  tell 


vs.  10, 11]  TWO  FORTRESSES  211 

you,  the  last  word  of  the  former  verse  might  be  more 
correctly  rendered,  '  the  righteous  runneth  into  it,  and 
is  set  on  high."  It  is  the  same  word  which  is  employed 
in  the  next  verse — '  a  high  wall.' 

So  we  have  '  the  strong  tower  '  and  '  the  strong  city ' ; 
the  man  lifted  up  above  danger  on  the  battlements  of 
the  one,  and  the  man  fancying  himself  to  be  high  above 
it  (and  only  fancying  himself)  in  the  imaginary  safety 
of  the  other. 

I.  Consider  then,  first,  the  two  fortresses. 

One  need  only  name  them  side  by  side  to  feel  the  full 
force  of  the  intended  contrast.  On  the  one  hand,  the 
name  of  the  Lord  with  all  its  depths  and  glories,  with 
its  blaze  of  lustrous  purity,  and  infinitudes  of  inex- 
haustible power;  and  on  the  other,  'the  rich  man's 
wealth.'  What  contempt  is  expressed  in  putting  the 
two  side  by  side  !  It  is  as  if  the  author  had  said, '  Look 
on  this  picture  and  on  that!'  Two  fortresses!  Yes! 
The  one  is  like  Gibraltar,  inexpugnable  on  its  rock,  and 
the  other  is  like  a  painted  castle  on  the  stage;  flimsy 
canvas  that  you  cOuld  put  youi:  foot  through— solidity 
by  the  side  of  nothingness.  For  even  the  poor  appear- 
ance of  solidity  is  an  illusion,  as  our  text  says  with 
bitter  emphasis — '  a  high  wall  in  his  own  conceit' 

'The  name  of  the  Lord,'  of  course,  is  the  Biblical 
expression  for  the  whole  character  of  God,  as  He  has 
made  it  known  to  us,  or  in  other  words,  for  God  Him- 
self, as  He  has  been  pleased  to  reveal  Himself  to  man- 
kind. The  syllables  of  that  name  are  all  the  deeds  by 
which  He  has  taught  us  what  He  is;  every  act  of 
power,  of  wisdom,  of  tenderness,  of  grace  that  has 
manifested  these  qualities  and  led  us  to  believe  that 
they  are  all  infinite.  In  the  name,  in  its  narrower 
sense,  the  name  of  Jehovah,  there  is  much  of '  the  name ' 


212  THE  PROVERBS  [ch.xviii. 

in  its  wider  sense.  For  that  name  '  Jehovah,' both  by 
its  signification  and  by  the  circumstances  under  which 
it  was  originally  employed,  tells  us  a  great  deal  about 
God.  It  tells  us,  for  instance,  by  virtue  of  its  significa- 
tion, that  He  is  self-existent,  depending  upon  no  other 
creature.  *  I  Am  that  I  Am  ! '  No  other  being  can  say 
that.  All  the  rest  of  us  have  to  say,  *  I  am  that  which 
God  made  me.'  Circumstances  and  a  hundred  other 
things  have  made  me ;  God  finds  the  law  of  His  being 
and  the  fountain  of  His  being  within  Himself. 

'  He  sits  on  no  precarious  throne, 
Nor  borrows  leave  to  be.' 

His  name  proclaims  Him  to  be  self-existent,  and  as 
self-existent,  eternal ;  and  as  eternal,  changeless ;  and 
as  self-existent,  eternal,  changeless,  infinite  in  all  the 
qualities  by  which  He  makes  Himself  known.  This 
boundless  Being,  all  full  of  wisdom,  power,  and  tender- 
ness, with  whom  we  can  enter  into  relations  of  amity 
and  concord,  surely  He  is  '  a  strong  tower  into  which 
we  may  run  and  be  safe.' 

But  far  beyond  even  the  sweep  of  that  great  name, 
Jehovah,  is  the  knowledge  of  God's  deepest  heart  and 
character  which  we  learn  in  Him  who  said,  'I  have 
declared  Thy  name  unto  My  brethren,  and  will  declare 
it.'  Christ  in  His  life  and  death,  in  His  meekness, 
sweetness,  gentleness,  calm  wisdom,  infinite  patience, 
attractiveness ;  yearning  over  sinful  hearts,  weeping 
over  rebels,  in  the  graciousness  of  His  life,  in  the 
sacredness  and  the  power  of  His  Cross,  is  the  Revealer 
to  our  hearts  of  the  heart  of  God.  If  I  may  so  say.  He 
has  builded  'the  strong  tower'  broader,  has  expanded 
its  area  and  widened  its  gate,  and  lifted  its  summit  yet 
nearer  the  heavens,  and  made  the  name  of  God  a  wider 


vs.  10.11]  TWO  FORTRESSES  213 

name  and  a  mightier  name,  and  a  name  of  surer  defence 
and  blessing  than  ever  it  was  before. 

And  so,  dear  brethren !  it  all  comes  to  this,  the  name 
that  is  '  the  strong  tower '  is  the  name  *  My  Father ! '  a 
Father  of  infinite  tenderness  and  wisdom  and  power. 
Oh !  where  can  the  child  rest  more  quietly  than  on  the 
mother's  breast,  where  can  the  child  be  safer  than  in 
the  circle  of  the  father's  arms  ?  '  The  name  of  the  Lord 
is  a  strong  tower.' 

Now  turn  to  the  other  for  a  moment:  *The  rich 
man's  wealth  is '  (with  great  emphasis  on  the  next  little 
word) '  his  strong  city,  and  as  a  high  wall  in  his  own 
conceit.'  Of  course  we  have  not  to  deal  here  only  with 
wealth  in  the  shape  of  money,  but  all  external  and 
material  goods,  the  whole  mass  of  the  '  things  seen  and 
temporal,'  are  gathered  together  here  in  this  phrase. 

Men  use  their  imaginations  in  very  strange  fashion, 
and  make,  or  fancy  they  make,  for  themselves  out  of 
the  things  of  the  present  life  a  defence  and  a  strength. 
Like  some  poor  lunatic,  out  upon  a  moor,  that  fancies 
himself  ensconced  in  a  castle  ;  like  some  barbarous 
tribes  behind  their  stockades  or  crowding  at  the  back 
of  a  little  turf  wall,  or  in  some  old  tumble-down  fort 
that  the  first  shot  will  bring  rattling  down  about  their 
ears,  fancying  themselves  perfectly  secure  and  defended 
— so  do  men  deal  with  these  outward  things  that  are 
given  them  for  another  purpose  altogether :  they  make 
of  them  defences  and  fortresses. 

It  is  difficult  for  a  man  to  have  them  and  not  to  trust 
them.  So  Jesus  said  to  His  disciples  once  :  *  How 
hardly  shall  they  that  have  riches  enter  into  the 
Kingdom  ' ;  and  when  they  were  astonished  at  His 
words.  He  repeated  them  with  the  significant  variation, 
*  How  hard  is  it  for  them  that  trust  in  riches  to  enter 


214  THE  PROVERBS  [ch.xviii. 

into  the  Kingdom  of  God.'  So  He  would  teach  that 
the  misuse  and  not  the  possession  of  wealth  is  the 
barrier,  but  so,  too,  He  would  warn  us  that,  nine  times 
out  of  ten,  the  possession  of  them  in  more  than  a 
very  modest  measure,  tempts  a  man  into  confidence 
in  them. 

The  illusion  is  one  that  besets  us  all.  We  are  all 
tempted  to  make  a  defence  of  the  things  that  we  can 
see  and  handle.  Is  it  not  strange,  and  is  it  not  sad, 
that  most  of  us  just  turn  the  truth  round  about  and 
suppose  that  the  real  defence  is  the  imaginary,  and 
that  the  imaginary  one  is  the  real  ?  How  many  men 
are  there  in  this  chapel  who,  if  they  spoke  out  of  their 
deepest  convictions,  would  say :  '  Oh  yes  !  the  promises 
of  God  are  all  very  well,  but  I  would  rather  have  the 
cash  down.  I  suppose  that  I  may  trust  that  He  will 
provide  bread  and  water,  and  all  the  things  that  I  need, 
but  I  would  rather  have  a  good  solid  balance  at  the 
banker's.'  How  many  of  you  would  rather  honestly, 
and  at  the  bottom  of  your  hearts,  have  that  than  God's 
word  for  your  defence  ?  How  many  of  you  think  that 
to  trust  in  a  living  God  is  but  grasping  at  a  very  airy 
and  unsubstantial  kind  of  support ;  and  that  the  real 
solid  defence  is  the  defence  made  of  the  things  that  you 
can  see  ? 

My  brother  !  it  is  exactly  the  opposite  way.  Turn  it 
clean  round,  and  you  get  the  truth.  The  unsubstantial 
shadows  are  the  material  things  that  you  can  see  and 
handle  ;  illusory  as  a  dream,  and  as  little  able  to  ward 
off  the  blows  of  fate  as  a  soap  bubble.  The  real  is  the 
unseen  beyond — '  the  things  that  are,'  and  He  who  alone 
really  is,  and  in  His  boundless  and  absolute  Being  is 
our  only  defence. 

In  one  aspect  or  another,  that  false  imagination  with 


vs.  10, 11]  TWO  FORTRESSES  215 

which  my  last  text  deals  is  the  besetting  sin  of 
Manchester.  Not  the  rich  man  only,  but  the  poor  man 
just  as  much,  is  in  danger  of  it.  The  poor  man  who 
thinks  that  everything  would  be  right  if  only  he  were 
rich,  and  the  rich  man  who  thinks  that  everything  is 
right  because  he  is  rich,  are  exactly  the  same  man. 
The  circumstances  differ,  but  the  one  man  is  but  the 
other  turned  inside  out.  And  all  round  about  us  we 
see  the  fierce  fight  to  get  more  and  more  of  these 
things,  the  tight  grip  of  them  when  we  have  got  them, 
the  overestimate  of  the  value  of  them,  the  contempt 
for  the  people  who  have  less  of  them  than  ourselves. 
Our  aristocracy  is  an  aristocracy  of  wealth ;  in  some 
respects,  one  by  no  means  to  be  despised,  because  there 
often  go  a  great  many  good  qualities  to  the  making 
and  the  stewardship  of  wealth;  but  still  it  is  an  evil 
that  men  should  be  so  largely  estimated  by  their  money 
as  they  are  here.  It  is  not  a  sound  state  of  opinion 
which  has  made  *  what  is  he  ivorth  ? '  mean  *  how  much 
of  it  has  he?'  We  are  taught  here  to  look  upon  the 
prizes  of  life  as  being  mainly  wealth.  To  win  that  is 
'success' — 'prosperity' — and  it  is  very  hard  for  us  all 
not  to  be  influenced  by  the  prevailing  tone. 

I  would  urge  you,  young  men,  especially  to  lay  this 
to  heart — that  of  all  delusions  that  can  beset  you  in 
your  course,  none  will  work  more  disastrously  than  the 
notion  that  the  summum  bonum,  the  shield  and  stay  of 
a  man,  is  the  '  abundance  of  the  things  that  he  possesses.' 
I  fancy  I  see  more  listless,  discontented,  unhappy  faces 
looking  out  of  carriages  than  I  see  upon  the  pavement. 
And  I  am  sure  of  this,  at  any  rate,  that  all  which  is 
noble  and  sweet  and  good  in  life  can  be  wrought  out 
and  possessed  upon  as  much  bread  and  water  as  will 
keep  body  and  soul  together,  and  as  much  furniture  as 


216  THE  PROVERBS  [ch.xviii. 

will  enable  a  man  to  sit  at  his  meal  and  lie  down  at 
night.  And  as  for  the  rest,  it  has  many  advantages 
and  blessings,  but  oh  !  it  is  all  illusory  as  a  defence 
against  the  evils  that  will  come,  sooner  or  later,  to 
every  life. 

II.  Consider  next  how  to  get  into  the  true  Refuge. 

•  The  righteous  runneth  into  it  and  is  safe,'  says  my 
text.  You  may  get  into  the  illusory  one  very  easily. 
Imagination  will  take  you  there.  There  is  no  difficulty 
at  all  about  that.  And  yet  the  way  by  which  a  man 
makes  this  world  his  defence  may  teach  you  a  lesson  as 
to  how  you  can  make  God  your  defence.  How  does  a 
man  make  this  world  his  defence  ?  By  trusting  to  it. 
He  that  says  to  the  fine  gold,  '  Thou  art  my  confidence,' 
has  made  it  his  fortress — and  that  is  how  you  will 
make  God  your  fortress — by  trusting  to  Him.  The 
very  same  emotion,  the  very  same  act  of  mind,  heart, 
and  will,  may  be  turned  either  upwards  or  downwards, 
as  you  can  turn  the  beam  from  a  lantern  which  way 
you  please.  Direct  it  earthwards,  and  you  '  trust  in  the 
uncertainty  of  riches.'  Flash  it  heavenwards,  and  you 
'  trust  in  the  living  God.' 

And  that  same  lesson  is  taught  by  the  words  of  our 
text,  'The  righteous  runneth  into  it.'  I  do  not  dwell 
upon  the  word  '  righteous.'  That  is  the  Old  Testament 
point  of  view,  which  could  not  conceive  it  possible  that 
any  man  could  have  deep  and  close  communion  with 
God,  except  on  condition  of  a  pure  character.  I  will 
not  speak  of  that  at  present,  but  point  to  the  pictur- 
esque metaphor,  which  will  tell  us  a  great  deal  more 
about  what  faith  is  than  many  a  philosophical  disserta- 
tion. Many  a  man  who  would  be  perplexed  by  a 
theologian's  talk  will  understand  this :  '  The  righteous 
runneth  into  the  name  of  the  Lord.' 


v8.io,ll]  TWO  FORTRESSES  217 

The  metaphor  brings  out  the  idea  of  eager  haste  in 
betaking  oneself  to  the  shelter,  as  when  an  invading 
army  comes  into  a  country,  and  the  unarmed  peasants 
take  their  portable  belongings  and  their  cattle,  and 
catch  up  their  children  in  their  arms,  and  set  their 
wives  upon  their  mules,  and  make  all  haste  to  some 
fortified  place ;  or  as  when  the  man  slayer  in  Israel  fled 
to  the  city  of  refuge,  or  as  when  Lot  hurried  for  his  life 
out  of  Sodom.  There  would  be  no  dawdling  then ;  but 
with  every  muscle  strained,  men  would  run  into  the 
stronghold,  counting  every  minute  a  year  till  they 
were  inside  its  walls,  and  heard  the  heavy  door  close 
between  them  and  the  pursuer.  No  matter  how  rough 
the  road,  or  how  overpowering  the  heat — no  time  to 
stop  to  gather  flowers,  or  even  diamonds  on  the  road, 
when  a  moment's  delay  might  mean  the  enemy's  sword 
in  your  heart ! 

Now  that  metaphor  is  frequently  used  to  express  the 
resolved  and  swift  act  by  which,  recognising  in  Jesus 
Christ,  who  declares  the  name  of  the  Lord,  our  hiding- 
place,  we  shelter  ourselves  in  Him,  and  rest  secure. 
One  of  the  picturesque  words  by  which  the  Old 
Testament  expresses  •  trust '  means  literally  *  to  flee  to 
a  refuge.'  The  Old  Testament  trust  is  the  New 
Testament  faith,  even  as  the  Old  Testament  *  Name  of 
the  Lord'  answers  to  the  New  Testament  ^ Name  of 
Jesus'  And  so  we  run  into  this  sure  hiding-place  and 
strong  fortress  of  the  name  of  the  Lord,  when  we 
betake  ourselves  to  Jesus  and  put  our  trust  in  Him  as 
our  defence. 

Such  a  faith — the  trust  of  mind,  heart,  and  will — 
laying  hold  of  the  name  of  the  Lord,  makes  us  *  right- 
eous,' and  so  capable  of  'dwelling  with  the  devouring 
fire '  of  God's  perfect  purity.    The  Old  Testament  point 


218  THE  PROVERBS  [ch.xviii. 

of  view  was  righteousness,  in  order  to  abiding  in  God. 
The  New  Testament  begins,  as  it  were,  at  an  earlier 
stage  in  the  religious  life,  and  tells  us  how  to  get  the 
righteousness,  without  which,  it  holds  as  strongly  as 
the  Old  Testament,  *no  man  shall  see  the  Lord.'  It 
shows  us  that  our  faith,  by  which  we  run  into  that 
fortress,  fits  us  to  enter  the  fortress,  because  it  makes 
us  partakers  of  Christ's  purity. 

So  my  earnest  question  to  you  all  is — Have  you  '  fled 
for  refuge  to  lay  hold '  on  that  Saviour  in  whom  God 
has  set  His  name?  Like  Lot  out  of  Sodom,  like  the 
manslayer  to  the  city  of  refuge,  like  the  unwarlike 
peasants  to  the  baron's  tower,  before  the  border 
thieves,  have  you  gone  thither  for  shelter  from  all  the 
sorrows  and  guilt  and  dangers  that  are  marching 
terrible  against  you?  Can  you  take  up  as  yours  the 
old  grand  words  of  exuberant  trust  in  which  the 
Psalmist  heaps  together  the  names  of  the  Lord,  as  if 
walking  about  the  city  of  his  defence,  and  telling  the 
towers  thereof,  '  The  Lord  is  my  rock,  and  my 
fortress,  and  my  deliverer;  my  God,  my  strength,  in 
whom  I  will  trust;  my  buckler,  and  the  horn  of  my 
salvation,  and  my  high  tower'?  If  you  have,  then 
'because  you  have  made  the  Lord  your  refuge,  there 
shall  no  evil  befall  you.' 

III.  So  we  have,  lastly,  what  comes  of  sheltering  in 
these  two  refuges. 

As  to  the  former  of  them,  I  said  at  the  beginning  of 
these  remarks  that  the  words  '  is  safe '  were  more 
accurately  as  well  as  picturesquely  rendered  by  '  is  set 
aloft.'  They  remind  us  of  the  psalm  which  has  many 
points  of  resemblance  with  this  text,  and  which  gives 
the  very  same  thought  when  it  says,  '  I  will  set  him  on 
high,  because  he  hath  known  My  name.'    The  fugitive 


vs.  10, 11]  TWO  FORTRESSES  219 

is  taken  within  the  safe  walls  of  the  strong  tower,  and 
is  set  up  high  on  the  battlements,  looking  down 
upon  the  baffled  pursuers,  and  far  beyond  the  reach  of 
their  arrows.  To  stand  upon  that  tower  lifts  a  man 
above  the  region  where  temptations  fly,  above  the 
region  where  sorrow  strikes;  lifts  him  above  sin  and 
guilt  and  condemnation  and  fear,  and  calumny  and 
slander,  and  sickness,  and  separation  and  loneliness 
and  death ;  '  and  all  the  ills  that  flesh  is  heir  to.' 

Or,  as  one  of  the  old  Puritan  commentators  has  it : 
'  The  tower  is  so  deep  that  no  pioneer  can  undermine 
it,  so  thick  that  no  cannon  can  breach  it,  so  high  that 
no  ladder  can  scale  it.'  *  The  righteous  runneth  into  it,' 
and  is  perched  up  there  ;  and  can  look  down  like  Lear 
from  his  cliff,  and  all  the  troubles  that  afflict  the  lower 
levels  shall  '  show  scarce  so  gross  as  beetles '  from  the 
height  where  he  stands,  safe  and  high,  hidden  in  the 
name  of  the  Lord. 

I  say  little  about  the  other  side.  Brethren !  the  world 
in  any  of  its  forms,  the  good  things  of  this  life  in  any 
shape,  whether  that  of  money  or  any  other,  can  do  a 
great  deal  for  us.  They  can  keep  a  great  many  incon- 
veniences from  us,  they  can  keep  a  great  many  cares 
and  pains  and  sorrows  from  us.  I  was  going  to  say,  to 
carry  out  the  metaphor,  they  can  keep  the  rifle-bullets 
from  us.  But,  ah !  when  the  big  siege-guns  get  into 
position  and  begin  to  play ;  when  the  great  trials  that 
every  life  must  have,  sooner  or  later,  come  to  open  fire 
at  us,  then  the  defence  that  anything  in  this  outer 
world  can  give  comes  rattling  about  our  ears  very 
quickly.  It  is  like  the  pasteboard  helmet  which  looked 
as  good  as  if  it  had  been  steel,  and  did  admirably  as 
long  as  no  sword  struck  it. 

There  is  only  one  thing  that  will  keep  us  peaceful 


220  THE  PROVERBS  [ch.xx. 

and  unharmed,  and  that  is  to  trust  our  poor  shelterless 
lives  and  sinful  souls  to  the  Saviour  who  has  died  for 
us.  In  Him  we  find  the  hiding-place,  in  which  secure, 
as  beneath  the  shadow  of  a  great  rock,  dreaded  evils 
will  pass  us  by,  as  impotent  to  hurt  as  savages  before  a 
castle  fortified  by  modern  skill.  All  the  bitterness  of 
outward  calamities  will  be  taken  from  them  before 
they  reach  us.  Their  arrows  will  still  wound,  but  He 
will  have  wiped  the  poison  off  before  He  lets  them  be 
shot  at  us.  The  force  of  temptation  will  be  weakened, 
for  if  we  live  near  Him  we  shall  have  other  tastes  and 
desires.  The  bony  fingers  of  the  skeleton  Death,  who 
drags  men  from  all  other  homes,  will  not  dislodge  us 
from  our  fortress  -  dwelling.  Hid  in  Him  we  shall 
neither  fear  going  down  to  the  grave,  nor  coming  up 
from  it,  nor  judgment,  nor  eternity.  Then,  I  beseech 
you,  make  no  delay.  Escape!  flee  for  your  life!  A 
growing  host  of  evil  marches  swift  against  you.  Take 
Christ  for  your  defence  and  cry  to  Him, 

*  Lo  1  from  sin  and  grief  and  shame, 
Hide  me,  Jesus  I  in  Thy  name.' 


A   STRING   OF   PEARLS 

•Wine  is  a  mocker,  strong  drink  is  raging  :  and  whosoever  is  deceived  thereby  is 
not  wise.  2.  The  fear  of  a  king  is  as  the  roaring  of  a  lion :  whoso  provoketh  him 
to  anger  sinneth  against  his  own  soul.  3.  It  is  an  honour  for  a  man  to  cease  from 
strife :  but  every  fool  will  be  meddling,  i.  The  sluggard  will  not  plough  by  reason 
of  the  cold ;  therefore  shall  he  beg  in  harvest,  and  have  nothing.  5.  Counsel  in 
the  heart  of  man  is  like  deep  water ;  but  a  man  of  understanding  will  draw  it 
out.  6.  Most  men  will  proclaim  every  one  his  own  goodness  :  but  a  faithful  man 
who  can  find  ?  7.  The  just  man  walketh  in  his  integrity :  his  children  are  blessed 
after  him.'— 1'koverbs  xx.  1-7. 

The  connection  between  the  verses  of  this  passage 
is  only  in  their  common  purpose  to  set  forth  some 
details  of  a  righteous  life,  and  to  brand  the  opposite 


vs.  1-7]  A  STRING  OF  PEARLS  221 

vices.  A  slight  affinity  may  be  doubtfully  traced  in 
one  or  two  adjacent  proverbs,  but  that  is  all. 

First  comes  temperance,  enforced  by  the  picture  of 
a  drunkard.  Wine  and  strong  drink  are,  as  it  vrere, 
personified,  and  their  effects  on  men  are  painted  as 
their  own  characters.  And  an  ugly  picture  it  is,  which 
should  hang  in  the  gallery  of  every  young  man  and 
woman.  'Wine  is  a  mocker.'  Intemperance  delights 
in  scoffing  at  all  pure,  lofty,  sacred  things.  It  is  the 
ally  of  wild  profanity,  which  sends  up  its  tipsy  and 
clumsy  ridicule  against  Heaven  itself.  If  a  man  wants 
to  lose  his  sense  of  reverence,  his  susceptibility  for 
what  is  noble,  let  him  take  to  drink,  and  the  thing  is 
done.  If  he  would  fain  keep  these  fresh  and  quick,  let 
him  eschew  what  is  sure  to  deaden  them.  Of  course 
there  are  other  roads  to  the  same  end,  but  there  is  no 
other  end  to  this  road.  Nobody  ever  knew  a  drunkard 
who  did  not  scoff  at  things  that  should  be  reverenced, 
and  that  because  he  knew  that  he  was  acting  in  de- 
fiance of  them. 

'  A  brawler,'  or,  as  Delitzsch  renders  it,  *  boisterous  ' 
— look  into  a  liquor-store  if  you  want  to  verify  that, 
or  listen  to  a  drunken  party  coming  back  from  an  ex- 
cursion and  making  night  hideous  with  their  bellow- 
ings,  or  go  to  any  police  court  on  a  Monday  morning. 
We  in  England  are  familiar  with  the  combination  on 
police  charge-sheets,  '  drunk  and  disorderly.'  So  does 
the  old  proverb-maker  seem  to  have  been.  Drink  takes 
off  the  brake,  and  every  impulse  has  its  own  way,  and 
makes  as  much  noise  as  it  can. 

The  word  rendered  in  Authorised  Version  *is  de- 
ceived,' and  in  Revised  Version  'erreth,'  is  literally 
•staggers'  or  'reels,'  and  it  is  more  graphic  to  keep 
that  meaning.    There  is  a  world  of  quiet  irony  in  the 


222  THE  PROVERBS  [ch.  xx 

unexpectedly  gentle  close  of  the  sentence,  '  is  not  wise.' 
How  much  stronger  the  assertion  might  have  been! 
Look  at  the  drunkard  as  he  staggers  along,  scofiRng  at 
everything  purer  and  higher  than  himself,  and  ready 
to  fight  with  his  own  shadow,  and  incapable  of  self- 
control.  He  has  made  himself  the  ugly  spectacle  you 
see.    Will  anybody  call  him  wise  ? 

The  next  proverb  applies  directly  to  a  state  of  things 
which  most  nations  have  outgrown.  Kings  who  can 
give  full  scope  to  their  anger,  and  who  inspire  mainly 
terror,  are  anomalies  in  civilised  countries  now.  The 
proverb  warns  that  it  is  no  trifle  to  rouse  the  lion  from 
his  lair,  and  that  when  he  begins  to  growl  there  is 
danger.  The  man  who  stirs  him  'forfeits  his  own  life,' 
or,  at  all  events,  imperils  it. 

The  word  rendered '  sins  '  has  for  its  original  meaning 
'  misses,'  and  seems  to  be  so  used  here,  as  also  in  Proverbs 
viii.  36.  *  Against '  is  a  supplement.  The  maxim  incul- 
cates the  wisdom  of  avoiding  conduct  which  might 
rouse  an  anger  so  sure  to  destroy  its  object.  And  that 
is  a  good  maxim  for  ordinary  times  in  all  lands,  mon- 
archies or  republics.  For  there  is  in  constitutional 
kingdoms  and  in  republics  an  uncrowned  monarch, 
to  the  full  as  irresponsible,  as  easily  provoked,  and 
as  relentless  in  hunting  its  opponents  to  destruc- 
tion, as  any  old-world  tyrant.  Its  name  is  Public 
Opinion.  It  is  not  well  to  provoke  it.  If  a  man 
does,  let  him  well  understand  that  he  takes  his  life, 
or  what  is  sometimes  dearer  than  life,  in  his  hand. 
Not  only  self-preservation,  which  the  proverb  and 
Scripture  recognise  as  a  legitimate  motive,  but  higher 
considerations,  dictate  compliance  with  the  ruling 
forces  of  our  times,  as  far  as  may  be.  Conscience  only 
has  the  right  to  limit  this  precept,  and  to  say, '  Let  the 


vs.  1-7]  A  STRING  OF  PEARLS  228 

brute  roar,  and  never  mind  if  you  do  forfeit  your  life. 
It  is  your  duty  to  say  "No,"  though  all  the  world  should 
be  saying  "  Yes." ' 

A  slight  thread  of  connection  may  be  established 
between  the  second  and  third  proverbs.  The  latter, 
like  the  former,  commends  peacefulness  and  condemns 
pugnacity.  Men  talk  of  '  glory '  as  the  warrior's  meed, 
and  the  so-called  Christian  world  has  not  got  beyond 
the  semi-barbarous  stage  which  regards  '  honour '  as 
mainly  secured  by  fighting.  But  this  ancient  proverb- 
maker  had  learned  a  better  conception  of  what '  honour' 
or  '  glory '  was,  and  where  it  grew. 

'  Peace  hath  her  victories 
.  No  less  renowned  than  war,' 

said  Milton.  But  our  proverb  goes  farther  than  '  no 
less,'  and  gives  greater  glory  to  the  man  who  never 
takes  up  arms,  or  who  lays  them  down.  The  saying  is 
true,  not  only  about  warfare,  but  in  all  regions  of  life. 
Fighting  is  generally  wasted  time.  Controversialists 
of  all  sorts,  porcupine-like  people,  who  go  through  the 
world  all  sharp  quills  sticking  out  to  pierce,  are  less  to 
be  admired  than  peace-loving  souls.  Any  fool  can '  show 
his  teeth,'  as  the  word  for  *  quarrelling '  means.  But  it 
takes  a  wise  man,  and  a  man  whose  spirit  has  been 
made  meek  by  dwelling  near  God  in  Christ,  to  with- 
hold the  angry  word,  the  quick  retort.  It  is  gene- 
rally best  to  let  the  glove  flung  down  lie  where  it  is. 
There  are  better  things  to  do  than  to  squabble. 

Verse  4  is  a  parable  as  well  as  a  proverb.  If  a  man 
sits  by  the  fireside  because  the  north  wind  is  blowing, 
when  he  ought  to  be  out  in  the  field  holding  the 
plough  with  frost-nipped  fingers,  he  will  beg  (or, 
perhaps,  seek  for  a  crop)  in  harvest,  and  will  find 
nothing,  when  others  are  rejoicing  in  the  '  slow  result 


224  THE  PROVERBS  [ch.  xx. 

of  winter  showers '  and  of  their  toilsome  hours.  So, 
in  all  life,  if  the  fitting  moments  for  preparation  are 
neglected,  late  repentance  avails  nothing.  The  student 
who  dawdles  when  he  should  be  working,  will  be  sure 
to  fail  when  the  examination  comes  on.  It  is  useless 
to  begin  ploughing  when  your  neighbours  are  driving 
their  reaping  machines  into  the  fields.  'There  is  a 
time  to  sow,  and  a  time  to  reap.'  The  law  is  inexorable 
for  this  life,  and  not  less  certainly  so  for  the  life  to 
come.  The  virgins  who  cried  in  vain,  *  Lord,  Lord,  open 
to  us ! '  and  were  answered,  '  Too  late,  too  late,  ye  can- 
not enter  now ! '  are  sisters  of  the  man  who  was  hin- 
dered from  ploughing  because  it  was  cold,  and  asked 
in  vain  for  bread  when  harvest  time  had  come.  *  To-day, 
if  ye  will  to  hear  His  voice,  harden  not  your  hearts.' 

The  next  proverb  is  a  piece  of  shrewd  common  sense. 
It  sets  before  us  two  men,  one  reticent,  and  the  other 
skilful  in  worming  out  designs  which  he  wishes  to 
penetrate.  The  former  is  like  a  deep  draw-well ;  the 
latter  is  like  a  man  who  lets  down  a  bucket  into  it, 
and  winds  it  up  full.  'Still  waters  are  deep.'  The 
faculty  of  reading  men  may  be  abused  to  bad  ends,  but 
is  worth  cultivating,  and  may  be  allied  to  high  aims, 
and  serve  to  help  in  accomplishing  these.  It  may  aid 
good  men  in  detecting  evil,  in  knowing  how  to  present 
God's  truth  to  hearts  that  need  it,  in  pouring  comfort 
into  closely  shut  spirits.  Not  only  astute  business  men 
or  politicians  need  it,  but  all  who  would  help  their 
fellows  to  love  God  and  serve  Him — preachers,  teachers, 
and  the  like.  And  there  would  be  more  happy  homes 
if  parents  and  children  tried  to  understand  one  another. 
We  seldom  dislike  a  man  when  we  come  to  know  him 
thoroughly.    We  cannot  help  him  till  we  do. 

The  proverb   in  verse  6  is  susceptible  of  different 


vs.  1-7]  A  STRING  OF  PEARLS  225 

renderings  in  the  first  clause.  Delitzsch  and  others 
would  translate,  'Almost  every  man  meets  a  man  who 
is  gracious  to  him.'  The  contrast  will  then  be  be- 
tween partial  '  grace '  or  kindness,  and  thoroughgoing 
1  eliableness  or  trustworthiness.  The  rendering  of  the 
i.uthorised  and  Revised  Versions,  on  the  other  hand, 
r. lakes  the  contrast  between  talk  and  reality,  profes- 
sions of  goodwill  and  acts  which  come  up  to  these.  In 
either  case,  the  saying  is  the  bitter  fruit  of  experience. 
Even  charity,  which  '  believeth  all  things,'  cannot  but 
admit  that  soft  words  are  more  abundant  than  deeds 
which  verify  them.  It  is  no  breach  of  the  law  of  love 
to  open  one's  eyes  to  facts,  and  so  to  save  oneself  from 
taking  p.- per  money  for  gold,  except  at  a  heavy  dis- 
count. Perhaps  the  reticence,  noted  in  the  previous 
proverb,  led  to  the  thought  of  a  loose-tongued  pro- 
fession of  kindliness  as  a  contrast.  Neither  the  one  nor 
the  other  is  admirable.  The  practical  conclusion  from 
the  facts  in  this  proverb  is  double — do  not  take  much 
heed  of  men's  eulogiums  on  their  own  benevolence ;  do 
not  trumpet  your  own  praises.  Caution  and  modesty 
are  parts  of  Christian  perfection. 

The  last  saying  points  to  the  hereditary  goodness 
which  sometimes,  for  our  comfort,  we  do  see,  as  well  as 
to  the  halo  from  a  saintly  parent  which  often  surrounds 
his  children.  Note  that  there  may  be  more  than  mere 
succession  in  time  conveyed  by  the  expression  *  after 
him.'  It  may  mean  following  in  his  footsteps.  Such 
children  are  blessed,  both  in  men's  benedictions  and 
in  their  own  peaceful  hearts.  Weighty  responsibilities 
lie  upon  the  children  of  parents  who  have  transmitted 
to  them  a  revered  name.  A  Christian's  children  are 
doubly  bound  to  continue  the  parental  tradition,  and 
are  doubly  criminal  if  they  depart  from  it.    There  is  no 

p 


226  THE  PROVERBS  [ch.  xx. 

sadder  sight  than  that  of  a  godly  father  wailing  < 
an  ungodly  son,  unless  it  be  that  of  the  ungodly 
who  makes  him  wail.  Absalom  hanging  by  his  < 
in  the  oak-tree,  and  David  groaning,  '  My  son,  my  s 
touch  all  hearts.  Alas  that  the  tragedy  should  \ 
often  repeated  in  our  homes  to-day! 


THE  SLUGGARD  IN  HARVEST 

'The  sluggard  will  not  plow  by  reason  of  the  cold;  therefore  shall  hi 
harvest,  and  have  nothing.'— Proverbs  xx.  4. 

Like  all  the  sayings  of  this  book,  this  is  simply  a 
of  plain,  practical  common  sense,  intended  to  inc 
the  lesson  that  men  should  diligently  seize  the  <  ^jor- 
tunity  whilst  it  is  theirs.  The  sluggard  is  one  of  the 
pet  aversions  of  the  Book  of  Proverbs,  which,  unlike 
most  other  manuals  of  Eastern  wisdom,  has  a  profound 
reverence  for  honest  work. 

He  is  a  great  drone,  for  he  prefers  the  chimney-corner 
to  the  field,  even  although  it  cannot  have  been  very 
cold  if  the  weather  was  open  enough  to  admit  of 
ploughing.  And  he  is  a  great  fool,  too,  for  he  buys  his 
comfort  at  a  very  dear  price,  as  do  all  men  who  live  for 
to-day,  and  let  to-morrow  look  out  for  itself. 

But  like  most  of  the  other  sayings  of  this  book,  my 
text  contains  principles  which  are  true  in  the  highest 
regions  of  human  life,  for  the  laws  which  rule  up  there 
are  not  different  from  those  which  regulate  the  motions 
of  its  lower  phases.  Religion  recognises  the  same 
practical  common-sense  principles  that  daily  business 
does.  I  venture  to  take  this  as  my  text  now,  in 
addressing  young  people,  because  they  have  special 
need  of,  and  special  facilities  for,  the  wisdom  which  it 
enjoins ;  and  because  the  words  only  want  to  be  turned 


V.  4]      THE  SLUGGARD  IN  HARVEST      227 

with  their  faces  heavenwards  in  order  to  enforce  the 
great  appeal,  the  only  one  which  it  is  worth  my  while 
to  make,  and  worth  your  while  to  come  here  to  listen 
to ;  the  appeal  to  each  of  you, '  I  heseech  you,  by  the 
mercies  of  God,  that  ye  yield  yourselves  to  God '  now. 

My  object,  then,  will  be  perhaps  best  accomplished  if 
I  simply  ask  you  to  look,  first,  at  the  principles  involved 
in  this  quaint  proverb  ;  and,  secondly,  to  apply  them  in 
one  or  two  directions. 

I.  First,  then,  let  us  try  to  bring  out  the  principles 
which  are  crystallised  in  this  picturesque  saying. 

The  first  thought  evidently  is :  present  conduct  deter- 
mines future  conditions.  Life  is  a  series  of  epochs,  each 
of  which  has  its  destined  work,  and  that  being  done,  all 
is  well ;  and  that  being  left  undone,  all  is  ill. 

Now,  of  course,  in  regard  to  many  of  the  accidents  of 
a  man's  condition,  his  conduct  is  only  one,  and  by  no 
means  the  most  powerful,  of  the  factors  which  settle 
them.  The  position  which  a  man  fills,  the  tasks  which 
he  has  to  perform,  and  the  whole  host  of  things  which 
make  up  the  externals  of  his  life,  depend  upon  far  other 
conditions  than  any  that  he  brings  to  them.  But  yet 
on  the  whole  it  is  true  that  what  a  man  does,  and  is, 
settles  how  he  fares.  And  this  is  the  mystical  import- 
ance and  awful  solemnity  of  the  most  undistinguished 
moments  and  most  trivial  acts  of  this  awful  life  of 
ours,  that  each  of  them  has  an  influence  on  all  that 
comes  after,  and  may  deflect  our  whole  course  into 
altogether  different  paths.  It  is  not  only  the  moments 
that  we  vulgarly  and  blindly  call  great  which  settle  our 
condition,  but  it  is  the  accumulation  of  the  tiny  ones ; 
the  small  deeds,  the  unnoticed  acts,  which  make  up  so 
large  a  portion  of  every  man's  life.  It  is  these,  after 
all,  that  are  the  miost  powerful  in  settling  what  we 


228  THE  PROVERBS  [ch.  xx. 

shall  be.  There  come  to  each  of  us  supreme  moments 
in  our  lives.  Yes !  and  if  in  all  the  subordinate  and  in- 
significant moments  we  have  not  been  getting  ready 
for  them,  but  have  been  nurturing  dispositions  and 
acquiring  habits,  and  cultivating  ways  of  acting  and 
thinking  which  condemn  us  to  fail  beneath  the  require- 
ments of  the  supreme  moment,  then  it  passes  us  by, 
and  we  gain  nothing  from  it.  Tiny  mica  flakes  have 
built  up  the  Matterhorn,  and  the  minute  acts  of  life 
after  all,  by  their  multiplicity,  make  up  life  to  be  what 
it  is.  '  Sand  is  heavy,'  says  this  wise  book  of  Proverbs. 
The  aggregation  of  the  minutest  grains,  singly  so  light 
that  they  would  not  affect  the  most  delicate  balance, 
weighs  upon  us  with  a  weight '  heavy  as  frost,  and  deep 
almost  as  life.'  The  mystic  significance  of  the  triviali- 
ties of  life  is  that  in  them  we  largely  make  destiny,  and 
that  in  them  we  wholly  make  character. 

And  now,  whilst  this  is  true  about  all  life,  it  is  especi- 
ally true  about  youth.  You  have  facilities  for  moulding 
your  being  which  some  of  us  older  men  would  give  a 
great  deal  to  have  again  for  a  moment,  with  our 
present  knowledge  and  bitter  experience.  The  lava 
that  has  solidified  into  hard  rock  with  us  is  yet  molten 
and  plastic  with  you.  You  can,  I  was  going  to  say,  be 
anything  you  make  up  your  minds  to ;  and,  within 
reasonable  limits,  the  bold  saying  is  true.  '  Ask  what 
thou  wilt  and  it  shall  be  given  to  thee '  is  what  nature 
and  Providence,  almost  as  really  as  grace  and  Christ, 
say  to  every  young  man  and  woman,  because  you  are 
the  arbiters,  not  wholly,  indeed,  of  your  destiny,  and 
are  the  architects,  altogether,  of  your  character,  which 
is  more. 

And  so  I  desire  to  lay  upon  your  hearts  this  thread- 
bare old  truth,  because  you  are  living  in  the  ploughing 


V.4]      THE  SLUGGARD  IN  HARVEST      229 

time,  and  the  harvest  is  months  ahead.  Whilst  it  is 
true  that  every  day  is  the  child  of  all  the  yesterdays, 
and  the  parent  of  all  the  to-morrows,  it  is  also  true  that 
life  has  its  predominant  colouring,  varying  at  different 
epochs,  and  that  for  you,  though  you  are  largely  in- 
heriting, even  now,  the  results  of  your  past,  brief  as  it 
is,  still  more  largely  is  the  future,  the  plastic  future,  in 
your  hands,  to  be  shaped  into  such  forms  as  you  will. 
'  The  child  is  father  of  the  man,'  and  the  youth  has  the 
blessed  prerogative  of  standing  before  the  mouldable 
to-morrow,  and  possessing  a  nature  still  capable  of 
being  cast  into  an  almost  infinite  variety  of  form. 

But  then,  not  only  do  you  stand  with  special  advan- 
tages for  making  yourselves  what  you  will,  but  you 
specially  need  to  be  reminded  of  the  terrible  importance 
and  significance  of  each  moment.  For  this  is  the  very 
irony  of  human  life,  that  we  seldom  awake  to  the  sense 
of  its  importance  till  it  is  nearly  ended,  and  that  the 
period  when  reflection  would  avail  the  most  is  precisely 
the  period  when  it  is  the  least  strong  and  habitual. 
What  is  the  use  of  an  old  man  like  me  thinking  about 
what  he  could  make  of  life  if  he  had  it  to  do  over  again, 
as  compared  with  the  advantage  of  your  doing  it  ?  Yet 
I  dare  say  that  for  once  that  you  think  thus,  my  con- 
temporaries do  it  fifty  times.  So,  not  to  abate  one  jot 
of  your  buoyancy,  not  to  cast  any  shadow  over  joys 
and  hopes,  but  to  lift  you  to  a  sense  of  the  blessed 
possibilities  of  your  position,  I  want  to  lay  this  principle 
of  my  text  upon  your  consciences,  and  to  beseech  you 
to  try  to  keep  it  operatively  in  mind — you  are  making 
yourselves,  and  settling  your  destiny,  by  every  day  of 
your  plastic  youth. 

There  is  another  principle  as  clear  in  my  text  — 
viz.,  the  easy  road  is  generally  the  wrong  one.     The 


230  THE  PROVERBS  [ch.  xx. 

sluggard  was  warmer  at  the  fireside  than  he  would  be 
in  the  field  with  his  plough  in  the  north  wind,  and  so  he 
stopped  there.  There  are  always  obstacles  in  the  way 
of  noble  life.  It  is  always  easier,  as  flesh  judges,  to 
live  ignobly  than  to  live  as  Jesus  Christ  would  have  us 
live.  'Endure  hardness'  is  the  commandment  to  all 
who  would  be  soldiers  of  any  great  cause,  and  would 
not  fling  away  their  lives  in  low  self-indulgence.  If  a 
man  is  going  to  be  anything  worth  being,  or  to  do  any- 
thing worth  doing,  he  must  start  with,  and  adhere  to 
this,  'to  scorn  delights  and  live  laborious  days.'  And 
only  then  has  he  a  chance  of  rising  above  the  fat  dull 
weed  that  rots  in  Lethe's  stream,  and  of  living  any- 
thing like  the  life  that  it  becomes  him  to  live. 

Be  sure  of  this,,  dear  young  friends,  that  self-denial 
and  rigid  self-control,  in  its  two  forms,  of  stopping 
your  ears  to  the  attractions  of  lower  pleasures,  and  of 
cheerily  encountering  difficulties,  is  an  indispensable 
condition  of  any  life  which  shall  at  the  last  yield  a 
harvest  worth  the  gathering,  and  not  destined  to  be 

'  Cast  as  rubbish  to  the  void, 
When  God  hath  made  the  pile  complete.' 

Never  allow  yourselves  to  be  turned  away  from  the 
plain  path  of  duty  by  any  difficulties.  Never  allow 
yourselves  to  be  guided  in  your  choice  of  a  road  by 
the  consideration  that  the  turf  is  smooth,  and  the 
flowers  by  the  side  of  it  sweet.  Remember,  the  slug- 
gard would  have  been  warmer,  with  a  wholesome 
warmth,  at  the  ploughtail  than  cowering  in  the  chim- 
ney corner.  And  the  things  that  seem  to  be  difficulties 
and  hardships  only  need  to  be  fronted  to  yield,  like  the 
east  wind  in  its  season,  good  results  in  bracing  and 
hardening.  Fix  it  in  your  minds  that  nothing  worth 
doing  is  done  but  at  the  cost  of  difficulty  and  toil. 


T.  4]      THE  SLUGGARD  IN  HARVEST       231 

That  is  a  lesson  that  this  generation  wants,  even 
more  than  some  that  have  lived.  I  suppose  it  is  one  of 
the  temptations  of  older  men  to  look  askance  upon  the 
amusements  of  younger  ones,  but  I  cannot  help  lifting 
up  here  one  word  of  earnest  appeal  to  the  young  men 
and  women  of  this  congregation,  and  beseeching  them, 
as  they  value  the  nobleness  of  their  own  lives,  and  their 
power  of  doing  any  real  good,  to  beware  of  what  seems 
to  me  the  altogether  extravagant  and  excessive  love, 
and  following  after,  of  mere  amusement  which  char- 
acterises this  day  to  so  large  an  extent.  Better  toil 
than  such  devotion  to  mere  relaxation. 

The  last  principle  here  is  that  the  season  let  slip  is 
gone  for  ever.  Whether  my  text,  in  its  second  picture, 
intends  us  to  think  of  the  sluggard  when  the  harvest 
came  as  'begging'  from  his  neighbours;  or  whether, 
as  is  possibly  the  construction  of  the  Hebrew,  it  simply 
means  to  describe  him  as  going  out  into  his  field,  and 
looking  at  it,  and  asking  for  the  harvest  and  seeing 
nothing  there  but  weeds,  the  lesson  it  conveys  is  the 
same — the  old,  old  lesson,  so  threadbare  that  I  should 
be  almost  ashamed  of  taking  up  your  time  with  it 
unless  I  believed  that  you  did  not  lay  it  to  heart  as 
you  should.  Opportunity  is  bald  behind,  and  must  be 
grasped  by  the  forelock.  Life  is  full  of  tragic  might- 
have-beens.  No  regret,  no  remorse,  no  self-accusation, 
no  clear  recognition  that  I  was  a  fool  will  avail  one  jot. 
The  time  for  ploughing  is  past;  you  cannot  stick  the 
share  into  the  ground  when  you  should  be  wielding  the 
sickle.  *  Too  late '  is  the  saddest  of  human  words.  And, 
my  brother,  as  the  stages  of  our  lives  roll  on,  unless 
each  is  filled  as  it  passes  with  the  discharge  of  the 
duties,  and  the  appropriation  of  the  benefits  which  it 
brings,  then,  to  all  eternity,  that  moment  will  never 


232  THE  PROVERBS  [ch.xx. 

return,  and  the  sluggard  may  beg  in  harvest  that  he 
may  have  the  chance  to  plough  once  more,  and  have 
none.  The  student  that  has  spent  the  term  in  indol- 
ence, perhaps  dissipation,  has  no  time  to  get  up  his 
subject  when  he  is  in  the  examination-room,  with  the 
paper  before  him.  And  life,  and  nature,  and  God's  law, 
which  is  the  Christian  expression  for  the  heathen  one 
of  nature,  are  stern  taskmasters,  and  demand  that  the 
duty  shall  be  done  in  its  season  or  left  undone  for  ever. 

II.  In  the  second  place,  let  me,  just  in  a  few  words, 
carry  the  lamp  of  these  principles  of  ijiy  text  and  flash 
its  rays  upon  one  or  two  subjects. 

Let  me  say  a  word,  first,  about  the  lowest  sphere  to 
which  my  text  applies.  I  referred  at  the  beginning  of 
this  discourse  to  this  proverb  as  simply  an  inculcation 
of  the  duty  of  honest  work,  and  of  the  necessity  of 
being  wide  awake  to  opportunities  in  our  daily  work. 
Now,  the  moet  of  you  young  men,  and  many  of  you 
young  women,  are  destined  for  ordinary  trades,  pro- 
fessions, walks  in  commerce ;  and  I  do  not  suppose  it 
to  be  beneath  the  dignity  of  the  pulpit  to  say  this :  Do 
not  trust  to  any  way  of  getting  on  by  dodges  or  specu- 
lation, or  favour,  or  anything  but  downright  hard  work. 
Don't  shirk  difficulties,  don't  try  to  put  the  weight  of 
the  work  upon  some  colleague  or  other,  that  you  may 
have  an  easier  life  of  it.  Set  your  backs  to  your  tasks, 
and  remember  that '  in  all  labour  there  is  profit ' ;  and 
whether  the  profit  comes  to  you  in  the  shape  of 
advancement,  position,  promotion  in  your  offices,  part- 
nerships perhaps,  wealth,  and  the  like,  or  no,  the  profit 
lies  in  the  work.     Honest  toil  is  the  key  to  pleasure. 

Then,  let  me  apply  the  text  in  a  somewhat  higher 
direction.  Carry  these  principles  with  you  in  the 
cultivation  of  that  important  part  of  yourself— your 


V.  4]      THE  SLUGGARD  IN  HARVEST       233 

intellects.  What  would  some  of  us  old  students  give  if 
we  had  the  flexibility,  the  power  of  assimilating  new 
truth,  the  retentive  memories,  that  you  young  people 
have?  Some  of  you,  perhaps,  are  students  by  pro- 
fession ;  I  should  like  all  of  you  to  make  a  conscience 
of  making  the  best  of  your  brains,  as  God  has  given 
them  to  you,  a  trust.  '  The  sluggard  will  not  plough 
by  reason  of  the  cold.'  The  dawdler  will  read  no  books 
that  tax  his  intellect,  therefore  shall  he  beg  in  harvest 
and  have  nothing.  Amidst  all  the  flood  of  feeble, 
foolish,  flaccid  literature  with  which  we  are  afflicted  at 
this  day,  I  wonder  how  many  of  you  young  men  and 
women  ever  set  yourselves  to  some  great  book  or  sub- 
ject that  you  cannot  understand  without  effort.  Unless 
you  do  you  are  not  faithful  stewards  of  the  supreme 
gift  of  God  to  you  of  that  great  faculty  which  appre- 
hends and  lives  upon  truth.  So  remember  the  sluggard 
by  his  fireside  ;  and  do  you  get  out  with  your  plough. 

Again  I  say,  apply  these  principles  to  a  higher  work 
still — that  of  the  formation  of  character.  Nothing  will 
come  to  you  noble,  great,  elevating,  in  that  direction, 
unless  it  is  sought,  and  sought  with  toil. 

•  In  woods,  in  waves,  in  wars,  she  wont  to  dwell. 
And  will  be  found  with  peril  and  with  pain  ; 
Before  her  gate  high  Heaven  did  sweat  ordain, 
And  wakeful  watches  ever  to  abide.' 

Wisdom  and  truth,  and  all  their  elevating  effects 
upon  human  character,  require  absolutely  for  their 
acquirement  effort  and  toil.  You  have  the  opportunity 
still.  As  I  said  a  moment  ago — you  may  mould  your- 
selves into  noble  forms.  But  in  the  making  of  character 
we  have  to  work  as  a  painter  in  fresco  does,  with  a 
swift  brush  on  the  plaster  while  it  is  wet.  It  sets  and 
hardens  in  an  hour.    And  men  drift  into  habits  which 


284  THE  PROVERBS  [ch.xx. 

become  tyrannies  and  dominant  before  they  know 
where  they  are.  Don't  let  yourselves  be  shaped  by 
accident,  by  circumstance.  Remember  that  you  can 
build  yourselves  up  into  forms  of  beauty  by  the  help  of 
the  grace  of  God,  and  that  for  such  building  there  must 
be  the  diligent  labour  and  the  wise  clutching  at  oppor- 
tunity and  understanding  of  the  times  which  my  text 
suggests. 

And,  lastly,  let  these  principles  applied  to  religion 
teach  us  the  wisdom  and  necessity  of  beginning  the 
Christian  life  at  the  earliest  moment.  I  am  by  no 
means  prepared  to  say  that  the  extreme  tragedy  of  my 
text  can  ever  be  wrought  out  in  regard  to  the  religious 
experience  of  any  man  here  on  earth,  for  I  believe  that 
at  any  moment  in  his  career,  however  faultful  and 
stained  his  past  has  been,  and  however  long  and  ob- 
stinate has  been  his  continuance  in  evil,  a  man  may 
turn  himself  to  Jesus  Christ,  and  beg,  and  not  in  vain, 
nor  ever  find  '  nothing '  there. 

But  whilst  all  that  is  quite  true,  I  want  you,  dear 
young  friends,  to  lay  this  to  heart,  that  if  you  do  not  yield 
yourselves  to  Jesus  Christ  now,  in  your  early  days,  and 
take  Him  for  your  Saviour,  and  rest  your  souls  upon 
Him,  and  then  take  Him  for  your  Captain  and  Com- 
mander, for  your  Pattern  and  Example,  for  your 
Companion  and  your  Aim,  you  will  lose  what  you  can 
never  make  up  by  any  future  course.  You  lose  years 
of  blessedness,  of  peaceful  society  with  Him,  of  illumina- 
tion and  inspiration.  You  lose  all  the  sweetness  of  the 
days  which  you  spend  away  from  Him.  And  if  at  the 
end  you  did  come  to  Him,  you  would  have  one  regret, 
deep  and  permanent,  that  you  had  not  gone  to  Him 
before.  If  you  put  off,  as  some  of  you  are  putting  off, 
what  you  know  you  ought  to  do — namely,  give  your 


V.  4]      THE  SLUGGARD  IN  HARVEST      235 

hearts  to  Jesus  Christ  and  become  His — think  of  what 
you  are  laying  up  for  yourselves  thereby.  You  get 
much  that  it  would  be  gain  to  lose — bitter  memories, 
defiled  imaginations,  stings  of  conscience,  habits  that  it 
will  be  very  hard  to  break,  and  the  sense  of  having 
wasted  the  best  part  of  your  lives,  and  having  but  the 
fag  end  to  bring  to  Him.  And  if  you  put  off,  as  some 
of  you  are  disposed  to  do,  think  of  the  risk  you  run.  It 
is  very  unlikely  that  susceptibilities  will  remain  if  they 
are  trifled  with.  You  remember  that  Felix  trembled 
once,  and  sent  for  Paul  often ;  but  we  never  hear  that 
he  trembled  any  more.  And  it  is  quite  possible,  and 
quite  likely,  more  likely  than  not,  that  you  will  never 
be  as  near  being  a  Christian  again  as  you  are  now, 
if  you  turn  away  from  the  impressions  that  are  made 
upon  you  at  this  moment,  and  stifle  the  half-formed 
resolution. 

But  there  is  a  more  solemn  thought  still.  This  life 
as  a  whole  is  to  the  future  life  as  the  ploughing  time  is 
to  the  harvest,  and  there  are  awful  words  in  Scripture 
which  seem  to  point  in  the  same  direction  in  reference 
to  the  irrevocable  and  irreversible  issue  of  neglected 
opportunities  on  earth,  as  this  proverb  does  in  regard 
to  the  ploughing  and  harvests  of  this  life. 

I  dare  not  conceal  what  seems  to  me  the  New  Testa- 
ment confirmation  and  deepening  of  the  solemn  words 
of  our  text,  '  He  shall  beg  in  harvest  and  have  nothing,' 
by  the  Master's  words,  '  Many  shall  say  to  me  in  that 
day,  Lord !  Lord !  and  I  will  say,  I  never  knew  you.' 
The  five  virgins  who  rubbed  their  sleepy  eyes  and 
asked  for  oil  when  the  master  was  at  hand  got  none,  and 
when  they  besought,  '  Lord !  Lord  !  open  to  us,'  all  the 
answer  was, '  Too  late !  too  late  !  ye  cannot  enter  now.' 
Now,  while  it  is  called  day,  harden  not  your  hearts. 


BREAD  AND  GRAVEL 

'  Bread  of  deceit  is  sweet  to  a  man ;  but  afterwards  his  month  shall  be  filled 
with  gravel.'— Proverbs  xx.  17. 

'  Bread  of  deceit '  is  a  somewhat  ambiguous  phrase, 
which  may  mean  either  of  two  things,  and  perhaps 
means  both.  It  may  either  mean  any  good  obtained 
by  deceit,  or  good  which  deceives  in  its  possession.  In 
the  former  signification  it  would  appear  to  have  refer- 
ence primarily  to  unjustly  gotten  gain,  while  in  the 
latter  it  has  a  wider  meaning  and  applies  to  all  the 
worthless  treasures  and  lying  delights  of  life.  The 
metaphor  is  full  of  homely  vigour,  and  the  contrast 
between  the  sweet  bread  and  the  gravel  that  fills  the 
mouth  and  breaks  the  teeth,  carries  a  solemn  lesson 
which  is  perpetually  insisted  upon  in  this  book  of 
Proverbs,  and  confirmed  in  every  man's  experience. 

I.  The  first  lesson  here  taught  is  the  perpetuity  of 
the  most  transient  actions. 

We  are  tempted  to  think  that  a  deed  done  is  done 
with,  and  to  grasp  at  momentary  pleasure,  and  ignore 
its  abiding  consequences.  But  of  all  the  delusions 
by  which  men  are  blinded  to  the  true  solemnity  of  life 
none  is  more  fatal  than  that  which  ignores  the  solemn 
'  afterwards '  that  has  to  be  taken  into  account.  For, 
whatever  issues  in  outward  life  our  actions  may  have, 
they  have  all  a  very  real  influence  on  their  doers  ;  each 
of  them  tends  to  modify  character,  to  form  habits,  to 
drag  after  itself  a  whole  trail  of  consequences.  Each 
strikes  inwards  and  works  outwards.  The  whole  of  a 
life  may  be  set  forth  in  the  pregnant  figure,  *  A  sower 
went  forth  to  sow,'  and  '  Whatsoever  a  man  soweth, 
that  shall  he  also  reap.'    The  seed  may  lie  long  dormant, 

186 


V.17]  BREAD  AND  GRAVEL  237 

but  the  green  shoots  will  appear  in  due  time,  and  pass 
through  all  the  stages  of  '  first  the  blade,  and  then  the 
ear,  and  after  that  the  full  corn  in  the  ear.'  The  sower 
has  to  become  the  reaper,  and  the  reaper  has  to  eat 
*  of  the  bread  made  from  the  product  of  the  long  past 
sowing.  Shall  ice  have  to  reap  a  harvest  of  poisonous 
tares,  or  of  wholesome  wheat  ?  '  If  'twere  done  when 
'tis  done,  'twere  well  it  were  done  quickly ' ;  but  since  it 
begins  to  do  when  'tis  done,  it  were  often  better  that  it 
were  not  done  at  all.  A  momentary  pause  to  ask 
ourselves  when  tempted  to  evil,  'And  what  then?' 
would  burst  not  a  few  of  the  painted  bubbles  after 
which  we  often  chase. 

Is  there  any  reason  to  suppose  that  these  permanent 
consequences  of  our  transient  actions  are  confined  in 
their  operation  to  this  life  ?  Does  not  such  a  present, 
which  is  mainly  the  continuous  result  of  the  whole 
past,  seem  at  least  to  prophesy  and  guarantee  a  similar 
future?  Most  of  us,  I  suppose,  believe  in  the  life 
continuous  through  and  after  death  retributive  in  a 
greater  degree  than  life  here.  Whatever  changes  may 
be  involved  in  the  laying  aside  of  the  '  earthly  house  of 
this  tabernacle,'  it  seems  folly  to  suppose  that  in  it  we 
lay  aside  the  consequences  of  our  past  inwrought  into 
our  very  selves.  Surely  wisdom  suggests  that  we  try 
to  take  into  view  the  whole  scope  of  our  actions,  and 
to  carry  our  vision  as  far  as  the  consequences  reach. 
We  should  all  be  wiser  and  better  if  we  thought  more 
of  the  '  afterwards,'  whether  in  its  partial  form  in  the 
present,  or  in  its  solemn  completion  in  the  future 
beyond. 

II.  The  bitterness  of  what  is  sweet  and  wrong. 

There  is  no  need  to  deny  that  'bread  of  deceit  is 
sweet  to  a  man.'    There  is  a  certain  pleasure  in  a  lie, 


238  THE  PROVERBS  [ch.xx. 

and  the  taste  of  the  bread  purchased  by  it  is  not 
embittered  because  it  has  been  bought  by  deceit.  If 
we  succeed  in  getting  the  good  which  any  strong  desire 
hungers  after,  the  gratification  of  the  desire  ministers 
pleasure.  If  a  man  is  hungry,  it  matters  not  to  his 
hunger  how  he  has  procured  the  bread  which  he 
devours.  And  so  with  all  forms  of  good  which  appeal 
to  sense.  The  sweetness  of  the  thing  desired  and 
obtained  is  more  subtle,  but  not  less  real,  if  it  nourishes 
some  inclination  or  taste  of  a  higher  nature.  But  such 
sweetness  in  its  very  essence  is  momentary,  and  even, 
whilst  being  masticated,  'bread  of  deceit'  turns  into 
gravel;  and  a  mouthful  of  it  breaks  the  teeth, 
excoriates  the  gums,  interferes  with  breathing,  and 
ministers  no  nourishment.  The  metaphor  has  but  too 
familiar  illustrations  in  the  experience  of  us  all.  How 
often  have  we  flattered  ourselves  with  the  thought, 
'  If  I  could  but  get  this  or  that,  how  happy  I  should 
be'?  How  often  when  we  got  it  have  we  been  as 
happy  as  we  expected  ?  We  had  forgotten  the  voice  of 
conscience,  which  may  be  overborne  for  a  moment,  but 
begins  to  speak  more  threateningly  when  its  prohibi- 
tions have  been  neglected ;  we  had  forgotten  that  there 
is  no  satisfying  our  hungry  desires  with  'bread  of 
deceit,'  but  that  they  grow  much  faster  than  it  can  be 
presented  to  them ;  we  had  forgotten  the  evil  that  was 
strengthened  in  us  when  it  has  been  fed;  we  had 
forgotten  that  the  remembrance  of  past  delights  often 
becomes  a  present  sorrow  and  shame ;  we  had  forgotten 
avenging  consequences  of  many  sorts  which  follow 
surely  in  the  train  of  sweet  satisfactions  which  are 
wrong. 

So,  even  in  this  life  nothing  keeps  its  sweetness  which 
is  wrong,  and  nothing  which  is  sweet  and  wrong  avoids 


V.17]  BREAD  AND  GRAVEL  289 

a  tang  of  intensest  bitterness  'afterwards.'  And  all 
that  bitterness  will  be  increased  in  another  world,  if 
there  is  another,  when  God  gives  us  to  read  the  book 
of  our  lives  which  we  ourselves  have  written.  Many  a 
page  that  records  past  sweetness  will  then  be  felt  to  be 
written,  'within  and  without,'  with  lamentation  and 
woe. 

All  bitterness  of  what  is  sweet  and  wrong  makes 
it  certain  that  sin  is  the  stupidest,  as  well  as  the 
wickedest,  thing  that  a  man  can  do. 

III.  The  abiding  sweetness  of  true  bread. 

In  a  subordinate  sense,  the  true  bread  may  be  taken 
as  meaning  our  own  deeds  inspired  by  love  of  God  and 
approved  by  conscience.  They  may  often  be  painful 
to  do,  but  the  pain  merges  into  calm  pleasure,  and 
conscience  whispers  a  foretaste  of  heaven's  *  Well  done ! 
good  and  faithful  servant.'  The  roll  may  be  bitter  to 
the  lips,  but,  eaten,  becomes  sweet  as  honey ;  whereas 
the  world's  bread  is  sweet  at  first  but  bitter  at  last. 
The  highest  wisdom  and  the  most  exacting  conscience 
absolutely  coincide  in  that  which  they  prescribe,  and 
Scripture  has  the  warrant  of  universal  experience  in 
proclaiming  that  sin  in  its  subtler  and  more  refined 
forms,  as  well  as  in  its  grosser,  is  a  gigantic  mistake, 
and  the  true  wisdom  and  reasonable  regard  for  one's 
own  interest  alike  point  in  the  same  direction, — to  a 
life  based  on  the  love  of  God  in  Christ  Jesus  our  Lord, 
as  being  the  life  which  yields  the  happiest  results  to- 
day and  perpetual  bliss  hereafter.  But  let  us  not 
forget  that  in  the  highest  sense  Christ  Himself  is  the 
'  true  bread  that  cometh  down  from  heaven.'  He  may 
be  bitter  at  first,  being  eaten  with  tears  of  penitence 
and  painful  efforts  at  conquering  sin,  but  even  in  the 
first  bitterness  there  is  sweetness  beyond  all  the  earth 


240  THE  PROVERBS  [ch.  xxiii. 

can  give.  He  '  spreads  a  table  before  us  in  the  presence 
of  our  enemies,'  and  the  bread  which  He  gives  tastes  as 
the  manna  of  old  did,  like  vs^afers  made  of  honey.  Only 
perverted  appetites  loathe  this  light  bread  and  prefer 
the  strong-favoured  leeks  and  garlics  of  Egypt.  They 
who  sit  at  the  table  in  the  wilderness  will  finally  sit  at 
the  table  prepared  in  the  kingdom  of  the  heavens. 


A   CONDENSED    GUIDE    FOR   LIFE 

'  My  son,  if  thine  heart  be  wise,  my  heart  shall  rejoice,  even  mine.  16.  Yea,  my 
reins  shall  rejoice,  when  thy  lips  speak  right  things.  17.  Let  not  thine  heart  envy 
sinners  :  but  be  thou  in  the  fear  of  the  Lord  all  the  day  long.  18.  For  surely  there 
is  an  end  ;  and  thine  expectation  shall  not  be  cut  off.  19.  Hear  thou,  my  son,  and 
be  wise,  and  guide  thine  heart  in  the  way.  20.  Be  not  among  winebibbers ;  among 
riotous  eaters  of  flesh  :  21.  For  the  drunkard  and  the  glutton  shall  come  to 
poverty :  and  drowsiness  shall  clothe  a  man  with  rags.  22.  Hearken  unto  thy 
father  that  begat  thee,  and  despise  not  thy  mother  when  she  is  old.  23.  Buy  the 
truth  and  sell  it  not;  also  wisdom,  and  instruction,  and  understanding.'— 
Proverbs  xxiii.  15-23. 

The  precepts  of  this  passage  may  be  said  to  sum  up 
the  teaching  of  the  whole  Book  of  Proverbs.  The 
essentials  of  moral  character  are  substantially  the 
same  in  all  ages,  and  these  ancient  advices  fit  very 
close  to  the  young  lives  of  this  generation.  The  gospel 
has,  no  doubt,  raised  the  standard  of  morals,  and,  in 
many  respects,  altered  the  conception  and  perspective 
of  virtues ;  but  its  great  distinction  lies,  not  so  much 
in  the  novelty  of  its  commandments  as  in  the  new 
motives  and  powers  to  obey  them.  Reverence  for 
parents  and  teachers,  the  habitual  '  fear  of  the  Lord,' 
temperance,  eager  efforts  to  win  and  retain  'the  truth,' 
have  always  been  recognised  as  duties ;  but  there  is 
a  long  weary  distance  between  recognition  and  prac- 
tice, and  he  who  draws  inspiration  from  Jesus  Christ 
will  have  strength  to  traverse  it,  and  to  do  and  be 
what  he  knows  that  he  should. 


v«.  16-33]  CONDENSED  GUIDE  FOR  LIFE  241 

The  passage  may  be  broken  up  into  four  parts, 
which,  taken  together,  are  a  young  life's  directory  of 
conduct  which  is  certain  to  lead  to  peace. 

I.  There  is,  first,  an  appeal  to  filial  affection,  and  an 
unveiling  of  paternal  sympathy  (verses  15,  16).  The 
paternal  tone  characteristic  of  the  Book  of  Proverbs 
is  most  probably  regarded  as  that  of  a  teacher  address- 
ing his  disciples  as  his  children.  But  the  glimpse  of  the 
teacher's  heart  here  given  may  well  apply  to  parents 
too,  and  ought  to  be  true  of  all  who  can  influence 
other  and  especially  young  hearts.  Little  power 
attends  advices  which  are  not  sweetened  by  manifest 
love.  Many  a  son  has  been  kept  back  from  evil  by 
thinking,  '  What  would  my  mother  say  ? '  and  many  a 
sound  admonition  has  been  nothing  but  sound,  because 
the  tone  of  it  betrayed  that  the  giver  did  not  much 
care  whether  it  was  taken  or  not. 

A  true  teacher  must  have  his  heart  engaged  in  his 
lessons,  and  must  impress  his  scholars  with  the  con- 
viction that  their  failure  drives  a  knife  into  it,  and 
their  acceptance  of  them  brings  him  purest  joy.  On 
the  other  hand,  the  disciple,  and  still  more  the  child, 
must  have  a  singularly  cold  nature  who  does  not  re- 
spond to  loving  solicitude  and  does  not  care  whether 
he  wounds  or  gladdens  the  heart  which  pours  out  its 
love  and  solicitude  over  him.  May  we  not  see  shining 
through  this  loving  appeal  a  truth  in  reference  to  the 
heart  of  the  great  Father  and  Teacher,  who,  in  the 
depths  of  His  divine  blessedness,  has  no  greater  joy 
than  that  His  children  should  walk  in  the  truth  ?  God's 
heart  is  glad  when  man's  is  wise. 

Note,  also,  the  wide  general  expression  for  goodness 
— a  wise  heart,  lips  speaking  right  things.  The  formei- 
is  source,  the  latter  stream.     Only  a  pure  fountain  will 

Q 


242  THE  PROVERBS  [ch.  xxiii. 

send  forth  sweet  waters.  '  If  thy  heart  become  wise ' 
is  the  more  correct  rendering,  implying  that  there  is 
no  inborn  wisdom,  but  that  it  must  be  made  ours  by 
effort.    We  are  foolish ;  we  become  wise. 

What  the  writer  means  by  wisdom  he  will  tell  us 
presently.  Here  he  lets  us  see  that  it  is  a  good  to 
be  attained  by  appropriate  means.  It  is  the  founda- 
tion of  '  right '  speech.  Nothing  is  more  remarkable 
than  the  solemn  importance  which  Scripture  attaches 
to  words,  even  more,  we  might  almost  say  than  to 
deeds,  therein  reversing  the  usual  estimate  of  their 
relative  value.  Putting  aside  the  cases  of  insincerity, 
falsehood,  and  the  like,  a  man's  speech  is  a  truer  tran- 
script of  himself  than  his  deeds,  because  less  hindered 
and  limited  by  externals.  The  most  precious  wine 
drips  from  the  grapes  by  their  own  w^eight  in  the  vat, 
without  a  turn  of  the  screw.  'By  thy  words  thou  shalt 
be  justified,  and  by  thy  words  thou  shalt  be  condemned.' 
'  God's  great  gift  of  speech  abused '  is  one  of  the  com- 
monest, least  considered,  and  most  deadly  sins. 

II.  We  have  next  the  one  broad  precept  with  its  sure 
reward,  which  underlies  all  goodness  (verses  17,  18). 
The  supplement '  be  thou,'  in  the  second  clause  of  verse 
17,  obscures  the  close  connection  of  clauses.  It  is  better 
to  regard  the  verb  of  the  first  clause  as  continued  in 
the  second.  Thus  the  one  precept  is  set  forth  nega- 
tively and  positively :  '  Strive  not  after  [that  is,  seek 
not  to  imitate  or  be  associated  with]  sinners,  but  after 
the  fear  of  the  Lord.'  The  heart  so  striving  becomes 
wise.  So,  then,  wisdom  is  not  the  result  of  cultivating 
the  intellect,  but  of  educating  the  desires  and  aspira- 
tions. It  is  moral  and  religious,  rather  than  simply 
intellectual.  The  magnificent  personification  of  Wis- 
dom   at    the    beginning    of    the    book  influences  the 


vs.15-23]  CONDENSED  GUIDE  FOR  LIFE  248 

subsequent  parts,  and  the  key  to  understanding  that 
great  conception  is,  '  The  fear  of  the  Lord  is  the  begin- 
ning of  Wisdom.'  The  Greek  goddess  of  Wisdom, 
noble  as  she  is,  is  of  the  earth  earthy  when  contrasted 
with  that  sovereign  figure.  Pallas  Athene,  with  her 
clear  eyes  and  shining  armour,  is  poor  beside  the  Wis- 
dom of  the  Book  of  Proverbs,  who  dwelt  with  God  '  or 
ever  the  earth  was,'  and  comes  to  men  with  loving 
voice  and  hands  laden  with  the  gifts  of  '  durable  riches 
and  righteousness.' 

He  is  the  wise  man  who  fears  God  with  the  fear 
which  has  no  torment  and  is  compact  of  love  and 
reverence.  He  is  on  the  way  to  become  wise  whose 
seeking  heart  turns  away  from  evil  and  evil  men,  and 
feels  after  God,  as  the  vine  tendrils  after  a  stay,  or  as 
the  sunflower  turns  to  the  light.  For  such  whole- 
hearted desire  after  the  one  supreme  good  there  must 
be  resolute  averting  of  desire  from  '  sinners.'  In  this 
world  full  of  evil  there  will  be  no  vigorous  longing  for 
good  and  God,  unless  there  be  determined  abstention 
from  the  opposite.  We  have  but  a  limited  quantity  of 
energy,  and  if  it  is  frittered  away  on  multifarious 
creatures,  none  will  be  left  to  consecrate  to  God.  There 
are  lakes  which  discharge  their  waters  at  both  ends, 
sending  one  stream  east  to  the  Atlantic  and  one  west 
to  the  Pacific ;  but  the  heart  cannot  direct  its  issues  of 
life  in  that  fashion.  They  must  be  banked  up  if  they 
are  to  run  deep  and  strong.  '  All  the  current  of  my 
being '  must '  set  to  thee '  if  my  tiny  trickle  is  to  reach 
the  great  ocean,  to  be  lost  in  which  is  blessedness. 

And  such  energy  of  desire  and  direction  is  not  to  be 
occasional,  but '  all  the  day  long.'  It  is  possible  to  make 
life  an  unbroken  seeking  after  and  communion  with 
God,  even  while  plunged  in  common  tasks  and  small 


244  THE  PROVERBS  [ch.  xxm. 

cares.  It  is  possible  to  approximate  indefinitely  to  that 
ideal  of  continual '  dwelling  in  the  house  of  the  Lord ' ; 
and  without  some  such  approximation  there  will  be 
little  realising  of  the  Lord,  sought  by  fits  and  starts, 
and  then  forgotten  in  the  hurry  of  business  or  plea- 
sure. A  photographic  plate  exposed  for  hours  will 
receive  the  picture  of  far-off  stars  which  would  never 
show  on  one  exposed  for  a  few  minutes. 

The  writer  is  sure  that  such  desires  will  be  satisfied, 
and  in  verse  18  says  so.  The  'reward'  (Rev.  Ver.) 
of  which  he  is  sure  is  the  outcome  of  the  life  of  such 
seekers  after  God.  It  does  not  necessarily  refer  to  the 
future  after  death,  though  that  may  be  included  in  it. 
But  what  is  meant  is  that  no  seeking  after  the  fear  of 
the  Lord  shall  be  in  vain.  There  is  a  tacit  emphasis  on 
'  thy,'  contrasting  the  sure  fulfilment  of  hopes  set  on 
God  with  the  as  sure  '  cutting  off '  of  those  mistakenly 
fixed  upon  creatures  and  vanities.  Psalm  xxxvii. 
38,  has  the  same  word  here  rendered  'reward,'  and 
declares  that  '  the  future  [or  reward]  of  the  wicked 
shall  be  cut  off.'  The  great  fulfilment  of  this  assurance 
is  reserved  for  the  life  beyond ;  but  even  here  among 
all  disappointments  and  hopes  of  which  fulfilment  is  so 
often  disappointment  also,  it  remains  true  that  the  one 
striving  which  cannot  be  fruitless  is  striving  for  more 
of  God,  and  the  one  hope  which  is  sure  to  be  realised, 
and  is  better  when  realised  than  expected,  is  the  hope 
set  on  Him.  Surely,  then,  the  certainty  that  if  we 
delight  ourselves  in  God  He  will  give  us  the  desires  of 
our  hearts,  is  a  good  argument,  and  should  be  with  us 
an  operative  motive  for  directing  desire  and  effort 
away  from  earth  and  towards  Him. 

III.  Special  precepts  as  to  the  control  of  the  animal 
nature  follow  in  verses  19-21.    First,  note  that  general 


V8. 15-23]  CONDENSED  GUIDE  FOR  LIFE  245 

one  of  verse  19,  *  Guide  thine  heart  in  the  way.'  In 
most  general  terms,  the  necessity  of  self-government  is 
laid  down.  There  is  a  '  way '  in  which  we  should  be 
content  to  travel.  It  is  a  definite  path,  and  feet  have 
to  be  kept  from  straying  aside  to  wide  wastes  on  either 
hand.  Limitation,  the  firm  suppression  of  appetites, 
the  coercing  of  these  if  they  seek  to  draw  aside,  are 
implied  in  the  very  conception  of  '  the  way.'  And  a  man 
must  take  the  upper  hand  of  himself,  and,  after  all 
other  guidance,  must  be  his  own  guide ;  for  God  guides 
us  by  enabling  us  to  guide  ourselves. 

Temperance  in  the  wider  sense  of  the  word  is  pro- 
minent among  the  virtues  flowing  from  fear  of  the 
Lord,  and  is  the  most  elementary  instance  of  '  guiding 
the  heart.'  Other  forms  of  self-restraint  in  regard  to 
animal  appetites  are  spoken  of  in  the  context,  but  here 
the  two  of  drunkenness  and  gluttony  are  bracketed 
together.  They  are  similarly  coupled  in  Deuteronomy 
xxi.  20,  in  the  formula  of  accusation  which  parents  are 
to  bring  against  a  degenerate  son.  Allusion  to  that 
passage  is  probable  here,  especially  as  the  other  crime 
mentioned  in  it — namely,  refusal  to  '  hear '  parental 
reproof — is  warned  against  in  verse  22.  The  picture, 
then,  here  is  that  of  a  prodigal  son,  and  we  have  echoes 
of  it  in  the  great  parable  which  paints  first  riotous 
living,  and  then  poverty  and  misery. 

Drunkenness  had  obviously  not  reached  the  dimen- 
sions of  a  national  curse  in  the  date  when  this  lesson 
was  written.  We  should  not  put  over- eating  side 
by  side  with  it.  But  its  ruinous  consequences  were 
plain  then,  and  the  bitter  experience  of  England  and 
America  repeats  on  a  larger  scale  the  old  lesson  that 
the  most  productive  source  of  poverty,  wretchedness, 
rags,  and  vice,  is  drink.    Judges  and  social  reformers 


246  THE  PROVERBS  [ch.  xxm. 

of  all  sorts  concur  in  that  now,  though  it  has  taken 
fifty  years  to  hammer  it  into  the  public  conscience. 
Perhaps  in  another  fifty  or  so  society  may  have 
succeeded  in  drawing  the  not  very  obscure  inference 
that  total  abstinence  and  prohibition  are  wise.  At 
any  rate,  they  who  seek  after  the  fear  of  the  Lord 
should  draw  it,  and  act  on  it. 

IV.  The  last  part  is  in  verses  22  and  23.  The  appeal  to 
filial  duty  cannot  here  refer  to  disciple  and  teacher,  but 
to  child  and  parents.  It  does  not  stand  as  an  isolated 
precept,  but  as  underscoring  the  important  one  which 
follows.  But  a  word  must  be  spared  for  it.  The  habits 
of  ancient  days  gave  a  place  to  the  father  and  mother 
which  modern  family  life  woefully  lacks,  and  suffers 
in  many  ways  for  want  of.  Many  a  parent  in  these 
days  of  slack  control  and  precocious  independence  might 
say,  '  If  I  be  a  father,  where  is  mine  honour  ? '  There 
was  perhaps  not  enough  of  confidence  between  parent 
and  child  in  former  days,  and  authority  on  the  one 
hand  and  submission  on  the  other  too  much  took 
the  place  of  love ;  but  nowadays  the  danger  is  all  the 
other  way — and  it  is  a  very  real  danger. 

But  the  main  point  here  is  the  earnest  exhortation  of 
verse  23,  which,  like  that  to  the  fear  of  the  Lord,  sums 
up  all  duty  in  one.  The  '  truth '  is,  like  '  wisdom,'  moral 
and  religious,  and  not  merely  intellectual.  '  Wisdom ' 
is  subjective,  the  quality  or  characteristic  of  the  devout 
soul ;  '  truth '  is  objective,  and  may  also  be  defined  as 
the  declared  will  of  God.  The  possession  of  truth  is 
wisdom.  '  The  entrance  of  Thy  words  giveth  light.'  It 
makes  wise  the  simple.  There  is,  then,  such  a  thing  as 
•  the  truth '  accessible  to  us.  We  can  know  it,  and  are 
not  to  be  for  ever  groping  amid  more  or  less  likely 
guesses,  but  may  rest  in  the  certitude  that  we  have  hold 


V8.15-23]  AFTERWARDS  AND  OUR  HOPE  247 

of  foundation  facts.  For  us,  the  truth  is  incarnate  in 
Jesus,  as  He  has  solemnly  asserted.  That  truth  we 
shall,  if  we  are  wise,  'buy,'  by  shunning  no  effort, 
sacrifice,  or  trouble  needed  to  secure  it. 

In  the  lower  meanings  of  the  word,  our  passage 
should  fire  us  all,  and  especially  the  young,  to  strain 
eA^ery  muscle  of  the  soul  in  order  to  make  truth  for  the 
intellect  our  own.  The  exhortation  is  needed  in  this 
day  of  adoration  of  money  and  material  good.  Nobler 
and  wiser  far  the  young  man  who  lays  himself  out  to 
know  than  he  who  is  engrossed  with  the  hungry  desire 
to  have  !  But  in  the  highest  region  of  truth,  the  buy- 
ing is  *  without  money  and  without  price,'  and  all  that 
we  can  give  in  exchange  is  ourselves.  We  buythe  trutli 
when  we  know  that  we  cannot  earn  it,  and  forsaking 
self-trust  and  self-pleasing,  consent  to  receive  it  as  a 
free  gift.  '  Sell  it  not,' — let  no  material  good  or  advan- 
tage, no  ease,  slothfulness,  or  worldly  success,  tempt 
you  to  cast  it  away  ;  for  its  '  fruit  is  better  than  gold,' 
and  its  '  revenue  than  choice  silver.'  We  shall  make  a 
bad  bargain  if  we  sell  it  for  anything  beneath  the 
stars ;  for  '  wisdom  is  better  than  rubies,'  and  he  has 
been  cheated  in  the  transaction  who  has  given  up  •  the 
truth '  and  got  instead  '  the  whole  world.' 


THE  AFTERWARDS  AND  OUR  HOPE 

•Be  thou  in  the  fear  of  the  Lord  all  the  day  long.    18.  For  surely  there  is  an  end 
and  thine  expectation  shall  not  he  cut  off.'— Proverbs  xxiii.  17,  18. 

The  Book  of  Proverbs  seldom  looks  beyond  the  limits 
of  the  temporal,  but  now  and  then  the  mists  lift  and  a 
wider  horizon  is  disclosed.  Our  text  is  one  of  these 
exceptional  instances,  and  is  remarkable,  not  only  as 
expressing  confidence  in  the  future,  but  as  expressing 


248  THE  PROVERBS  [ch.  xxiii. 

it  in  a  very  striking  way.  'Surely  there  is  an  end,' 
says  our  Authorised  Version,  substituting  in  the 
margin,  for  end,  '  reward.'  The  latter  word  is  placed  in 
the  text  of  the  Revised  Version.  But  neither  'end' 
nor  'reward'  conveys  the  precise  idea.  The  word  so 
translated  literally  means  '  something  that  comes  after.' 
So  it  is  the  very  opposite  of  '  end,'  it  is  really  that  which 
lies  beyond  the  end — the  'sequel,'  or  the  'future' — as 
the  margin  of  the  Revised  Version  gives  alternatively, 
or,  more  simply  still,  the  afterwards.  Surely  there  is 
an  afterwards  behind  the  end.  And  then  the  proverb 
goes  on  to  specify  one  aspect  of  that  afterwards : 
'Thine  expectation' — or,  better,  because  more  simply, 
thy  hope — shall  not  be  cut  off.  And  then,  upon  these 
two  convictions  that  there  is,  if  I  might  so  say,  an 
afterclap,  and  that  it  is  the  time  and  the  sphere  in 
which  the  fairest  hopes  that  a  man  can  paint  to  himself 
shall  be  surpassed  by  the  reality,  it  builds  the  plain 
partial  exhortation :  '  Be  thou  in  the  fear  of  the  Lord 
all  the  day  long.' 

So  then,  we  have  three  things  here,  the  certainty  of 
the  afterwards,  the  immortality  of  hope  consequent 
thereon,  and  the  bearing  of  these  facts  on  the  present. 

I.  The  certainty  of  the  hereafter. 

Now,  this  Book  of  Proverbs,  as  I  have  said  in  the 
great  collection  of  popular  sayings  which  makes  the 
bulk  of  it,  has  no  enthusiasm,  no  poetry,  no  mysticism. 
It  has  religion,  and  it  has  a  very  pure  and  lofty  morality, 
but,  for  the  most  part,  it  deals  with  maxims  of  worldly 
prudence,  and  sometimes  with  cynical  ones,  and  repre- 
sents, on  the  whole,  the  wisdom  of  the  market-place, 
and  the  'man  in  the  street.'  But  now  and  then,  as  I 
have  said,  we  hear  strains  of  a  higher  mood.  My  text, 
of  course,  might  be  watered  down  and  narrowed  so  as 


vs  17,18]  AFTERWARDS  AND  OUR  HOPE  249 

to  point  only  to  sequels  to  deeds  realised  in  this  life. 
And  then  it  would  be  teaching  us  simply  the  very  much 
needed  lessons  that  even  in  this  life,  •  Whatever  a  man 
soweth  that  shall  he  also  reap.'  But  it  seems  to  me 
that  we  are  entitled  to  see  here,  as  in  one  or  two  other 
places  in  the  Book  of  Proverbs,  a  dim  anticipation  of  a 
future  life  beyond  the  grave.  I  need  not  trouble  you 
with  quoting  parallel  passages  which  are  sown  thinly 
up  and  down  the  book,  but  I  venture  to  take  the  words 
in  the  wider  sense  to  which  I  have  referred. 

Now,  the  question  comes  to  be,  where  did  the  coiners 
of  Proverbs,  whose  main  interest  was  in  the  obvious 
ma  xims  of  a  prudential  morality,  get  this  conviction  ? 
They  did  not  get  it  from  any  lofty  experience  of  com- 
munion with  God,  like  that  which  in  the  seventy- 
third  Psalm  marks  the  very  high-water  mark  of  Old 
Testament  faith  in  regard  to  a  future  life,  where  the 
Psalmist  finds  himself  so  completely  blessed  and  well 
in  present  fellowship  with  God,  that  he  must  needs 
postulate  its  eternal  continuance,  and  just  because  he 
has  made  God  the  portion  of  his  heart,  and  is  holding 
fellowship  with  Him,  is  sure  that  nothing  can  intervene 
to  break  that  sweet  communion.  They  did  not  get  it 
from  any  clear  definite  revelation,  such  as  we  have  in 
the  resurrection  of  Jesus  Christ,  which  has  made  that 
future  life  far  more  than  an  inference  for  us,  but  they 
got  it  from  thinking  over  the  facts  of  this  present  life 
as  they  appeared  to  them,  looked  at  from  the  stand- 
point of  a  belief  in  God,  and  in  righteousness.  And  so 
they  represent  to  us  the  impression  that  is  made  upon 
a  man's  mind,  if  he  has  the  '  eye  that  hath  kept  watch 
o'er  man's  mortality,'  that  is  made  by  the  facts  of  this 
earthly  life — viz.  that  it  is  so  full  of  onward-looking, 
prophetic  aspect,  so  manifestly  and  tragically,  and  yet 


250  THE  PROVERBS  [ch.xxiii. 

wonderfully  and  hopefully,  incomplete  and  fragmen- 
tary in  itself,  that  there  must  be  something  beyond  in 
order  to  explain,  in  order  to  vindicate,  the  life  that  now 
is.  And  that  aspect  of  fragmentary  incompleteness 
is  what  I  would  insist  upon  for  a  moment  now. 

You  sometimes  see  a  row  of  houses,  the  end  one  of 
them  has,  in  its  outer  gable  v  all,  bricks  protruding 
here  and  there,  and  holes  for  chimney-pieces  that  are 
yet  to  be  put  in.  And  just  as  surely  as  that  external 
wall  says  that  the  row  is  half  built,  and  there  are  some 
more  tenements  to  be  added  to  it,  so  surely  does  the 
life  that  we  now  live  here,  in  all  its  aspects  almost, 
bear  upon  itself  the  stamp  that  it,  too,  is  but  initial 
and  preparatory.  You  sometimes  see,  in  the  book- 
seller's catalogue,  a  book  put  down  'volume  one;  all 
that  is  published.'  That  is  our  present  life — volume 
one,  all  that  is  published.  Surely  there  is  going  to  be 
a  sequel,  volume  two.  Volume  two  is  due,  and  will 
come,  and  it  will  be  the  continuation  of  volume  one. 

What  is  the  meaning  of  the  fact  that  of  all  the 
creatures  on  the  face  of  the  earth  only  you  and  I,  and 
our  brethren  and  sisters,  do  not  find  in  our  environment 
enough  for  our  powers  ?  What  is  the  meaning  of  the 
fact  that,  whilst  'foxes  have  holes'  where  they  curl 
themselves  up,  and  they  are  at  rest,  '  and  the  birds  of 
the  air  have  roosting-places,'  where  they  tuck  their 
heads  beneath  their  wings  and  sleep,  the  •  son  of  man ' 
hath  not  where  to  lay  his  head,  but  looks  round  upon 
the  earth  and  says,  '  The  earth,  O  Lord,  is  full  of  Thy 
mercy.  I  am  a  stranger  on  the  earth.'  What  is  the 
meaning  of  it?  Here  is  the  meaning  of  it:  'Surely 
there  is  a  hereafter.' 

What  is  the  meaning  of  the  fact  that  lodged  in  men's 
natures  there  lies  that  strange  power  of  painting  to 


vs.17,18]  AFTERWARDS  AND  OUR  HOPE  251 

themselves  things  that  are  not  as  though  they  were  ? 
So  that  minds  and  hearts  go  out  wandering  through 
Eternity,  and  having  longings  and  possibilities  which 
nothing  beneath  the  stars  can  satisfy,  or  can  develop  ? 
The  meaning  of  it  is  this :  Surely  there  is  a  hereafter. 
The  man  that  wrote  the  book  of  Ecclesiastes,  in  his 
sceptical  moment  ere  he  had  attained  to  his  last  con- 
clusion, says,  in  a  verse  that  is  mistranslated  in  our 
rendering,  '  He  hath  set  Eternity  in  their  hearts,  there- 
fore the  misery  of  man  is  great  upon  him.'  That  is 
true,  because  the  root  of  all  our  unrest  and  dissatisfac- 
tion is  that  we  need  God,  and  God  in  Eternity,  in  order 
that  we  may  be  at  rest.  But  whilst  on  the  one  hand 
'therefore  the  misery  of  man  is  great  upon  him,'  on 
the  other  hand,  because  Eternity  is  in  our  hearts, 
therefore  there  is  the  answer  to  the  longings,  the 
adequate  sphere  for  the  capacities  in  that  great  future, 
and  in  the  God  that  fills  it.  You  go  into  the  quarries 
left  by  reason  of  some  great  convulsion  or  disaster,  by 
forgotten  races,  and  you  will  find  there  half  excavated 
and  rounded  pillars  still  adhering  to  the  matrix  of  the 
rock  from  which  they  were  being  hewn.  Such  un- 
finished abortions  are  all  human  lives  if,  when  Death 
drops  its  curtain,  there  is  an  end. 

But,  brethren,  God  does  not  so  clumsily  disproportion 
His  creatures  and  their  place.  God  does  not  so  cruelly 
put  into  men  longings  that  have  no  satisfaction,  and 
desires  which  never  can  be  filled,  as  that  there  should 
not  be,  beyond  the  gulf,  the  fair  land  of  the  hereafter. 
Every  human  life  obviously  has  in  it,  up  to  the  very 
end,  the  capacity  for  progress.  Every  human  life,  up 
to  the  very  end,  has  been  educated  and  trained,  and 
that,  surely,  for  something.  There  may  be  masters  in 
workshops  who  take  apprentices,  and  teach  them  their 


252  THE  PROVERBS  [ch.  xxiii. 

trade  during  the  years  that  are  needed,  and  then  turn 
round  and  say,  '  I  have  no  work  for  you,  so  you  must 
go  and  look  for  it  somewhere  else.'  That  is  not  how 
God  does.  When  He  has  trained  His  apprentices  He 
gives  them  work  to  do.     Surely  there  is  a  hereafter. 

But  that  is  only  part  of  what  is  involved  in  this 
thought.  It  is  not  only  a  state  subsequent  to  the 
present,  but  it  is  a  state  consequent  on  the  present, 
and  the  outcome  of  it.  The  analogy  of  our  earthly  life 
avails  here.  To-day  is  the  child  of  all  the  yesterdays, 
and  the  yesterdays  and  to-day  are  the  parent  of  to- 
morrow. The  past,  our  past,  has  made  us  what  we 
are  in  the  present,  and  what  we  are  in  the  present  is 
making  us  what  we  shall  be  in  the  future.  And  when 
we  pass  out  of  this  life  we  pass  out,  notwithstanding 
all  changes,  the  same  men  as  we  were.  There  may  be 
much  on  the  surface  changed,  there  will  be  much  taken 
away,  thank  God !  dropped,  necessarily,  by  the  cessation 
of  the  corporeal  frame,  and  the  connection  into  which 
it  brings  us  with  things  of  sense.  There  will  be  much 
added,  God  only  knows  how  much,  but  the  core  of  the 
man  will  remain  untouched.  '  We  all  are  changed  by 
still  degrees,'  and  suddenly  at  last  '  All  but  the  basis  of 
the  evil.'  And  so  we  carry  ourselves  with  us  into  that 
future  life,  and,  '  what  a  man  soweth,  that  shall  he  also 
reap.'  Oh  that  they  were  wise,  that  they  understood 
this,  that  they  would  consider  their  afterward ! 

II.  Now,  secondly,  my  text  suggests  the  immortality 
of  hope.  'Thine  expectation'— or  rather,  as  I  said, 
'  thy  hope '— *  shall  not  be  cut  off.'  This  is  a  character- 
istic of  that  hereafter.  What  a  wonderful  saying  that 
is  which  also  occurs  in  this  Book  of  Proverbs,  'The 
righteous  hath  hope  in  his  death.'  Ah !  we  all  know 
how  swiftly,  as  years  increase,  the  things  to  hope  for 


V8.17,18]  AFTERWARDS  AND  OUR  HOPE  253 

diminish,  and  how,  as  we  approach  the  end,  less  and 
less  do  our  imaginations  go  out  into  the  possibilities  of 
the  sorrowing  future.  And  when  the  end  comes,  if 
there  is  no  afterwards,  the  dying  man's  hopes  must 
necessarily  die  before  he  does.  If  when  we  pass  into 
the  darkness  we  are  going  into  a  cave  with  no  outlet 
at  the  other  end,  then  there  is  no  hope,  and  you  may 
write  over  it  Dante's  grim  word:  *A11  hope  abandon, 
ye  who  enter  here.'  But  let  in  that  thought,  '  surely 
there  is  an  afterwards,'  and  the  enclosed  cave  becomes 
a  rock-passage,  in  which  one  can  see  the  arch  of  light 
at  the  far  end  of  the  tunnel ;  and  as  one  passes  through 
the  gloom,  the  eye  can  travel  on  to  the  pale  radiance 
beyond,  and  anticipate  the  ampler  ether,  the  diviner 
air,  '  the  brighter  constellations  burning,  mellow  moons 
and  happy  stars,'  that  await  us  there.  *  The  righteous 
hath  hope  in  his  death.'  *  Thine  expectation  shall  not 
be  cut  oflP.' 

But,  further,  that  conviction  of  the  afterward  opens 
up  for  us  a  condition  in  which  imagination  is  surpassed 
by  the  wondrous  reality.  Here,  I  suppose,  nobody  ever 
had  all  the  satisfaction  out  of  a  fulfilled  hope  that  he 
expected.  The  fish  is  always  a  great  deal  larger  and 
heavier  when  we  see  it  in  the  water  than  when  it  is 
lifted  out  and  scaled.  And  I  suppose  that,  on  the 
whole,  perhaps  as  much  pain  as  pleasure  comes  from 
the  hopes  which  are  illusions  far  more  often  than  they 
are  realities.  They  serve  their  purpose  in  whirling  us 
along  the  path  of  life  and  in  stimulating  effort,  but 
they  do  not  do  much  more. 

But  there  does  come  a  time,  if  you  believe  that  there 
is  an  afterwards,  when  all  we  desired  and  painted  to 
ourselves  of  possible  good  for  our  craving  spirits  shall 
be  felt  to  be  but  a  pale  reflex  of  the  reality,  like  the 


254  THE  PROVERBS  [ch.xxiii. 

light  of  some  unrisen  sun  on  the  snowfields,  and  we 
shall  have  to  say  '  the  half  was  not  told  to  us.' 

And,  further,  if  that  afterwards  is  of  the  sort  that 
we,  through  Jesus  Christ  and  His  resurrection  and 
glory,  know  to  be,  then  all  through  the  timeless  eternity 
hope  will  be  our  guide.  For  after  each  fresh  influx  of 
blessedness  and  knowledge  we  shall  have  to  say  'it 
doth  not  yet  appear  what  we  shall  be.'  'Thus  now 
abideth'— and  not  only  now,  but  then  and  eternally — 
'  these  three — faith,  hope,  and  charity,'  and  hope  will 
never  be  cut  off  through  all  the  stretch  of  that  great 
afterwards. 

III.  And  now,  finally,  notice  the  bearing  of  all  this 
on  the  daily  present. 

'  Be  thou  in  the  fear  of  the  Lord  all  the  day  long.' 
The  conviction  of  the  hereafter,  and  the  blessed  vision 
of  hopes  fulfilled,  are  not  the  only  reasons  for  that 
exhortation.  A  great  deal  of  harm  has  been  done,  I 
am  afi  aid,  by  well-meaning  preachers  who  have  drawn 
the  bulk  of  their  strongest  arguments  to  persuade  men 
to  Christian  faith  from  the  thought  of  a  future  life. 
Why,  if  there  were  no  future,  it  would  be  just  as  wise, 
just  as  blessed,  just  as  incumbent  upon  us  to  '  be  in  the 
fear  of  the  Lord  all  the  day  long.'  But  seeing  that 
there  is  that  future,  and  seeing  that  only  in  it  will  hope 
rise  to  fruition,  and  yet  subsist  as  longing,  surely  there 
comes  to  us  a  solemn  appeal  to  '  be  in  the  fear  of  the 
Lord  all  the  day  long,'  which  being  turned  into 
Christian  language,  is  to  live  by  habitual  faith,  in 
communion  with,  and  love  and  obedience  to,  our  Lord 
and  Saviour  Jesus  Christ. 

Surely,  surely  the  very  climax  and  bad  eminence  of 
folly  is  shutting  the  eyes  to  that  future  that  we  all 
have  to  face ;  and  to  live  here,  as  some  of  you  are 


Ts.17,18]  AFTERWARDS  AND  OUR  HOPE  255 

doing,  ignoring  it  and  God,  and  cribbing,  cabining,  and 
confining  all  our  thoughts  within  the  narrow  limits  of 
the  things  present  and  visible.  For  to  live  so,  as  our 
text  enjoins,  is  the  sure  way,  and  the  only  way,  to 
make  these  great  hopes  realities  for  ourselves. 

Brethren,  that  afterwards  has  two  sides  to  it.  The 
prophet  Malachi,  in  almost  his  last  words,  has  a  mag- 
nificent apocalypse  of  what  he  calls  'the  day  of  the 
Lord,'  which  he  sets  forth  as  having  a  double  aspect. 
On  the  one  hand,  it  is  lurid  as  a  furnace,  and  burns  up 
the  wicked  root  and  branch.  I  saw  a  forest  fire  this 
last  autumn,  and  the  great  pine-trees  stood  there  for  a 
moment  pyramids  of  flame,  and  then  came  down  with 
a  crash.  So  that  hereafter  will  be  to  godless  men. 
And  on  the  other  side,  that  '  day  of  the  Lord '  in  the 
prophet's  vision  was  radiant  with  the  freshness  and 
dew  and  beauty  of  morning,  and  the  Sun  of  Righteous- 
ness arose  with  healing  in  his  wings.  Which  of  the 
two  is  it  going  to  be  to  us?  We  have  all  to  face  it. 
We  cannot  alter  that  fact,  but  we  can  settle  how  we 
shall  face  it.  It  will  be  to  either  the  fulfilment  of 
blessed  hope,  the  *  appearance  of  the  glory  of  the  great 
God  and  our  Saviour,'  or  else,  as  is  said  in  this  same 
Book  of  Proverbs :  '  The  hope  of  the  godless '  shall  be 
like  one  of  those  water  plants,  the  papyrus  or  the  flag, 
which,  when  the  water  is  taken  away,  'withereth  up 
before  any  other  herb.'  It  is  for  us  to  determine 
whether  the  afterwards  that  we  must  enter  upon  shall 
be  the  land  in  which  our  hopes  shall  blossom  and  fruit, 
and  blossom  again  immortally,  or  whether  we  shall 
leave  behind  us,  with  all  the  rest  that  we  would  fain 
keep,  the  possibility  of  anticipating  any  good.  '  Surely 
there  is  an  afterwards,'  and  if  thou  wilt  '  be  in  the  fear 
of  the  Lord  all  the  day  long,'  then  for  evermore  *  thy 
hope  shall  not  be  cut  off.' 


THE  PORTRAIT  OF  A  DRUNKARD 

'Who  hath  woe?  who  hath  sorrow?  who  hath  contentions?  who  hath  babbling ! 
who  hath  wounds  without  cause  ?  who  hath  redness  of  eyes  ?  30.  They  that  tarry 
long  at  the  wine ;  they  that  go  to  seek  mixed  wine.  31.  Look  not  thou  upon  the 
wine  when  it  is  red,  when  it  giveth  his  colour  in  the  cup,  when  it  moveth  iiself 
aright.  32.  At  the  last  it  biteth  like  a  serpent,  and  stingeth  like  an  adder.  38. 
Thine  eyes  shall  behold  Strang®  women,  and  thine  heart  shall  utter  perverse 
things.  34.  Yea,  thou  shalt  be  as  he  that  lieth  down  in  the  midst  of  the  sea,  or  ai 
he  that  lieth  upon  the  top  of  a  mast.  35.  They  have  stricken  me,  shalt  thou  say, 
and  I  was  not  sick ;  they  have  beaten  me,  and  I  felt  it  not:  when  shall  I  awake?  1 
will  seek  it  yet  again.'— Proverbs  xxiii.  29-35. 

This  vivid  picture  of  the  effects  of  drunkenness  leaves 
its  sinfulness  and  its  wider  consequences  out  of  sight, 
and  fixes  attention  on  the  sorry  spectacle  which  a  man 
makes  of  himself  in  body  and  mind  when  he  '  puts  an 
enemy  into  his  mouth  to  steal  away  his  brains.'  Disgust 
and  ridicule  are  both  expressed.  The  writer  would  warn 
his  '  son '  by  impressing  the  ugliness  and  ludicrousness 
of  drunkenness.  The  argument  is  legitimate,  though 
not  the  highest. 

The  vehement  questions  poured  out  on  each  other's 
heels  in  verse  29  are  hot  with  both  loathing  and  grim 
laughter.  The  two  words  rendered  *  woe  *  and  '  sorrow ' 
are  unmeaning  exclamations,  very  like  each  other  in 
sound,  and  imitating  the  senseless  noises  of  the 
drunkard.  They  express  discomfort  as  a  dog  might 
express  it.  They  are  howls  rather  than  words.  That 
is  one  of  the  prerogatives  won  by  drunkenness, — to 
come  down  to  the  beasts'  level,  and  to  lose  the  power 
of  articulate  speech.  The  quarrelsomeness  which  goes 
along  with  certain  stages  of  intoxication,  and  the 
unmeaning  maudlin  misery  and  whimpering  into  which 
it  generally  passes,  are  next  coupled  together. 

Then  come  a  pair  of  effects  on  the  body.  The  tipsy 
man  cannot  take  care  of  himself,  and  reeling  against 

26« 


vs.29-35]  PORTRAIT  OF  A  DRUNKARD    257 

obstacles,  or  falling  over  them,  wounds  himself,  and 
does  not  know  where  the  scratches  and  blood  came 
from.  '  Redness  of  eyes '  is,  perhaps,  rather  '  darkness,' 
meaning  thereby  dim  sight,  or  possibly  '  black  eyes,'  as 
we  say, — a  frequent  accompaniment  of  drunkenness, 
and  corresponding  to  the  wounds  in  the  previous 
clause.  It  is  a  hideous  picture,  and  one  that  should  be 
burned  in  on  the  imagination  of  every  young  man  and 
woman.  The  liquor-sodden,  miserable  wrecks  that  are 
found  in  thousands  in  our  great  cities,  of  whom  this  is 
a  picture,  were,  most  of  them,  in  Sunday-schools  in 
their  day.  The  next  generation  of  such  poor  creatures 
are,  many  of  them,  in  Sunday-schools  now,  and  may 
be  reading  this  passage  to-day. 

The  answer  to  these  questions  has  a  touch  of  irony 
in  it.  The  people  who  win  as  their  possessions  these 
six  precious  things  have  to  sit  up  late  to  earn  them. 
What  a  noble  cause  in  which  to  sacrifice  sleep,  and 
turn  night  into  day !  And  they  pride  themselves  on 
being  connoisseurs  in  the  several  vintages ;  they '  know 
a  good  glass  of  wine  when  they  see  it.'  What  a  noble 
field  for  investigation !  What  a  worthy  use  of  the 
faculties  of  comparison  and  judgment !  And  bow 
desirable  the  prizes  won  by  such  trained  taste  and 
delicate  discrimination! 

In  verses  31  and  32  weighty  warning  and  dehortation 
follow,  based  in  part  on  the  preceding  picture.  The 
writer  thinks  that  the  only  way  of  sure  escape  from  the 
danger  is  to  turn  away  even  the  eyes  from  the  tempta- 
tion. He  is  not  contented  with  saying  '  taste  not,'  but 
he  goes  the  whole  length  of  '  look  not ' ;  and  that 
because  the  very  sparkle  and  colour  may  attract. 
•When  it  is  red'  might  perhaps  better  be  rendered 
*when  it  reddens  itself,'  suggesting  the  play  of  colour, 

B 


258  THE  PROVERBS  [ch.xxiii. 

as  if  put  forth  by  the  wine  itself.  The  word  rendered 
in  the  Authorised  Version  and  Revised  Version  'colour' 
is  literally  '  eye,'  and  probably  means  the  beaded 
bubbles  winking  on  the  surface.  '  Moveth  itself  aright' 
(Authorised  Version)  is  not  so  near  the  meaning  as 
•  goeth  down  smoothly '  (Revised  Version).  The  whole 
paints  the  attractiveness  to  sense  of  the  wine-cup  in 
colour,  effervescence,  and  taste. 

And  then  comes  in,  with  startling  abruptness,  the 
end  of  all  this  fascination, — a  serpent's  bite  and  a 
basilisk's  sting.  The  kind  of  poisonous  snake  meant  in 
the  last  clause  of  verse  32  is  doubtful,  but  certainly 
is  one  much  more  formidable  than  an  adder.  The 
serpent's  lithe  gracefulness  and  painted  skin  hide  a 
fatal  poison  ;  and  bo  the  attractive  wine-cup  is  sure  to 
ruin  those  who  look  on  it.  The  evil  consequences  are 
pursued  in  more  detail  in  what  follows. 

But  here  we  must  note  two  points.  The  advice  given 
is  to  keep  entirely  away  from  the  temptation.  *  Look 
not '  is  safe  policy  in  regard  of  many  of  the  snares  for 
young  lives  that  abound  in  our  modern  society.  It  is 
not  at  all  needful  to  *  see  life,'  or  to  know  the  secrets 
of  wickedness,  in  order  to  be  wise  and  good.  '  Simple 
concerning  evil '  is  a  happier  state  than  to  have  eaten 
the  fruit  of  the  tree  of  knowledge.  Many  a  young 
man  has  been  ruined,  body  and  soul,  by  a  prurient 
curiosity  to  know  what  sort  of  life  dissipated  men  and 
women  led,  or  what  sort  of  books  they  were  against 
which  he  was  warned,  or  what  kind  of  a  place  a 
theatre  was,  and  so  on.  Eyes  are  greedy,  and  there  is 
a  very  quick  telephone  from  them  to  the  desires.  '  The 
lust  of  the  eye '  soon  fans  the  '  lust  of  the  flesh '  into  a 
glow.  There  are  plenty  of  depths  of  Satan  gaping  for 
young  feet ;  and  on  the  whole,  it  is  safer  and  happier 


vs.29-35]   PORTRAIT  OF  A  DRUNKARD     259 

not  to  know  them,  and  so  not  to  have  defiling 
memories,  nor  run  the  risk  of  falling  into  fatal  sins. 
Whether  the  writer  of  this  stern  picture  of  a  drunkard 
was  a  total  abstainer  or  not,  the  spirit  of  his  counsel 
not  to  'look  on  the  wine'  is  in  full  accord  with  that 
practice.  It  is  very  clear  that  if  a  man  is  a  total 
abstainer,  he  can  never  be  a  drunkard.  As  much 
cannot  be  said  of  the  moderate  man. 

Note  too,  how  in  all  regions  of  life,  the  ultimate 
results  of  any  conduct  are  the  important  ones.  Con- 
sequences are  hard  to  calculate,  and  they  do  not  afford 
a  good  guidance  for  action.  But  there  are  many  lines 
of  conduct  of  which  the  consequences  are  not  hard  to 
calculate,  but  absolutely  certain.  It  is  childish  to  take 
a  course  because  of  a  moment's  gratification  at  the 
beginning,  to  be  followed  by  protracted  discomfort 
afterwards.  To  live  for  present  satisfaction  of  desires, 
and  to  shut  one's  eyes  tight  against  known  and  assured 
results  of  an  opposite  sort,  cannot  be  the  part  of  a 
sensible  man,  to  say  nothing  of  a  religious  one.  So 
moralists  have  been  preaching  ever  since  there  was 
such  a  thing  as  temptation  in  the  world;  and  men 
have  assented  to  the  common  sense  of  the  teaching, 
and  then  have  gone  straight  away  and  done  the  exact 
opposite. 

'  What  shall  the  end  be  ? '  ought  to  be  the  question 
at  every  beginning.  If  we  would  cultivate  the  habit 
of  holding  present  satisfactions  in  suspense,  and  of 
giving  no  weight  to  present  advantages  until  we  saw 
right  along  the  road  to  the  end  of  the  journey,  there 
would  be  fewer  failures,  and  fewer  weary,  disenchanted 
old  men  and  women,  to  lament  that  the  harvest  they 
had  to  reap  and  feed  on  was  so  bitter.  There  are 
other  and  higher  reasons  against  any  kind  of  fleshly 


260  THE  PROVERBS  [ch.xxiii. 

indulgence  than  that  at  the  last  it  bites  like  a  serpent, 
and  with  a  worse  poison  than  serpent's  sting  ever 
darted ;  but  that  is  a  reason,  and  young  hearts,  which 
are  by  their  very  youth  blessedly  unused  to  look 
forward,  will  be  all  the  happier  to-day,  and  all  the 
surer  of  to-morrow's  good,  if  they  will  learn  to  say, 
*And  afterwards — what?' 

The  passage  passes  to  a  renewed  description  of  the 
effects  of  intoxication,  in  which  the  disgusting  and 
the  ludicrous  aspects  of  it  are  both  made  prominent. 
Verse  33  seems  to  describe  the  excited  imagination  of 
the  drunkard,  whose  senses  are  no  longer  under  his 
control,  but  play  him  tricks  that  make  him  a  laughing- 
stock to  sober  people.  One  might  almost  take  the 
verse  to  be  a  description  of  delirium  tremens.  '  Strange 
things '  are  seen,  and  perverse  things  (that  is,  unreal, 
or  ridiculous)  are  stammered  out.  The  writer  has  a 
keen  sense  of  the  humiliation  to  a  man  of  being 
thus  the  fool  of  his  own  bewildered  senses,  and  as 
keen  a  one  of  the  absurd  spectacle  he  presents;  and 
he  warns  his  'son'  against  coming  down  to  such  a 
depth  of  degradation. 

It  may  be  questioned  whether  the  boasted  quicken- 
ing and  brightening  effects  of  alcohol  are  not  always, 
in  a  less  degree,  that  same  beguiling  of  sense  and 
exciting  of  imagination  which,  in  their  extreme  form, 
make  a  man  such  a  pitiable  and  ridiculous  sight.  It  is 
better  to  be  dull  and  see  things  as  they  are,  than  to  be 
brilliant  and  see  things  larger,  brighter,  or  any  way 
other  than  they  are,  because  we  see  them  through  a 
mist.  Imagination  set  agoing  by  such  stimulus,  will 
not  work  to  as  much  purpose  as  if  aroused  by  truth. 
God's  world,  seen  by  sober  eyes,  is  better  than  rosy 
dreams  of  it.    If  we  need  to  draw  our  inspiration  from 


V8.29-35]   PORTRAIT  OF  A  DRUNKARD    261 

alcohol,  we  had  better  remain  uninspired.  If  we  desire 
to  know  the  naked  truth  of  things,  the  less  we  have  to 
do  with  strong  drink  the  better.  Clear  eyesight  and 
self-command  are  in  some  degree  impaired  by  it 
always.  The  earlier  stages  are  supposed  to  be  exhilara- 
tion, increased  brilliancy  of  fancy  and  imagination, 
expanded  good-fellowship,  and  so  on.  The  latter  stages 
are  these  in  our  passage,  when  strange  things  dance 
before  cheated  eyes,  and  strange  words  speak  them- 
selves out  of  lips  which  their  owner  no  longer  controls. 
Is  that  a  condition  to  be  sought  after  ?  If  not,  do  not 
get  on  to  the  road  that  leads  to  it. 

Verse  34  adds  another  disgusting  and  ridiculous 
trait.  A  man  who  should  try  to  lie  down  and  go  to 
sleep  in  the  heart  of  the  sea  or  on  the  masthead  of  a 
ship  would  be  a  manifest  fool,  and  would  not  keep  life 
in  him  for  long.  One  has  seen  drunken  men  laying 
themselves  down  to  sleep  in  places  as  exposed  and  as 
ridiculous  as  these ;  and  one  knows  the  look  of  the 
heavy  lump  of  insensibility  lying  helpless  on  public 
roads,  or  on  railway  tracks,  or  anywhere  where  the 
fancy  took  him.  The  point  of  the  verse  seems  to  be 
the  drunken  man's  utter  loss  of  sense  of  fitness,  and 
complete  incapacity  to  take  care  of  himself.  He  cannot 
estimate  dangers.  The  very  instinct  of  self-preserva- 
tion has  forsaken  him.  There  he  lies,  though  as  sure 
to  be  drowned  as  if  he  were  in  the  depth  of  the  sea, 
though  on  as  uncomfortable  a  bed  as  if  he  were  rock- 
ing on  a  masthead,  where  he  could  not  balance  himself. 

The  torpor  of  verse  34  follows  on  the  unnatural 
excitement  of  verse  33,  as,  in  fact,  the  bursts  of  uncon- 
trolled energy  in  which  the  man  sees  and  says  strange 
things,  are  succeeded  by  a  collapse.  One  moment 
raging  in  excitement  caused  by  imaginary  sights,  the 


262  THE  PROVERBS  [ch.  xxiii. 

next  huddled  together  in  sleep  like  death, — what  a 
sight  the  man  is !  The  teacher  here  would  have  his 
'  son '  consider  that  he  may  come  to  that,  if  he  looks  on 
the  wine-cup.  '  Thou  shalt  be '  so  and  so.  It  is  very 
impolite,  but  very  necessary,  to  press  home  the  indi- 
vidual application  of  pictures  like  this,  and  to  bid 
bright  young  men  and  women  look  at  the  wretched 
creatures  they  may  see  hanging  about  liquor  shops, 
and  remember  that  they  may  come  to  be  such  as  these. 

Verse  35  finishes  the  picture.  The  tipsy  man's 
soliloquy  puts  the  copestone  on  his  degradation.  He 
has  been  beaten,  and  never  felt  it.  Apparently  he  is 
beginning  to  stir  in  his  sleep,  though  not  fully  awake ; 
and  the  first  thing  he  discovers  when  he  begins  to 
feel  himself  over  is  that  he  has  been  beaten  and 
wounded,  and  remembers  nothing  about  it.  A  degrad- 
ing anaasthetic  is  drink.  Better  to  bear  all  ills  than  to 
drown  them  by  drowning  consciousness.  There  is  no 
blow  which  a  man  cannot  bear  better  if  he  holds  fast 
by  God's  hand  and  keeps  himself  fully  exposed  to  the 
stroke,  than  if  he  sought  a  cowardly  alleviation  of  it, 
after  the  drunkard's  fashion. 

But  the  pains  of  his  beating  and  the  discomforts  of 
his  waking  do  not  deter  the  drunkard.  '  When  shall  I 
awake  ? '  5e  is  not  fully  awake  yet,  so  as  to  be  able 
to  get  up  and  go  for  another  drink.  He  is  in  the  stage 
of  feeling  sorry  for  himself,  and  examining  his  bruises, 
but  he  wishes  he  were  able  to  shake  off  the  remaining 
drowsiness,  that  he  might  '  seek  yet  again '  for  his 
curse.  The  tyranny  of  desire,  which  wakes  into  full 
activity  before  the  rest  of  the  man  does,  and  the 
enfeebled  will,  which,  in  spite  of  all  bruises  and  dis- 
comforts, yields  at  once  to  the  overmastering  desire, 
make  the  tragedy  of  a  drunkard's  life.    There  comes  a 


vs.29-35]      CRIME  OF  NEGLIGENCE  263 

point  in  lives  of  fleshly  indulgence  in  which  the  crav- 
ing seems  to  escape  from  the  control  of  the  will  alto- 
gether. Doctors  tell  us  that  the  necessity  for  drink 
becomes  a  physical  disease.  Yes;  but  it  is  a  disease 
manufactured  by  the  patient,  and  he  is  responsible  for 
getting  himself  into  such  a  state. 

This  tragic  picture  proves  that  there  were  many 
originals  of  it  in  the  days  when  it  was  painted.  Pro- 
bably there  are  far  more,  in  proportion  to  population, 
in  our  times.  The  warning  it  peals  out  was  never 
more  needed  than  now.  Would  that  all  preachers, 
parents,  and  children  laid  it  to  heart  and  took  the 
advice  not  even  to  *  look  upon  the  wine '  I 


THE  CRIME  OF  NEGLIGENCE 

*If  thou  forbear  to  deliver  them  that  are  drawn  unto  death,  and  those  that  are 
ready  to  be  slain ;  12.  If  thou  sayest.  Behold,  we  knew  it  not ;  doth  not  he  that 
pondereth  the  heart  consider  it?  and  he  that  keepeth  thy  soul,  doth  not  he  render 
to  every  man  according  to  his  works!'— Pbo verbs  xxiv.  11, 12. 

What  is  called  the  missionary  spirit  is  nothing  else  than 
the  Christian  church  working  in  a  particular  direction. 
If  a  man  has  a  conviction,  the  health  of  his  own  soul, 
his  reverence  for  the  truth  he  has  learnt  to  love,  his 
necessary  connection  with  other  men,  make  it  a  duty, 
a  necessity,  and  a  joy  to  tell  what  he  has  heard,  and  to 
speak  what  he  believes.  On  these  common  grounds 
rests  the  whole  obligation  of  Christ's  followers  to  speak 
the  Gospel  which  they  have  received ;  only  the  obliga- 
tion presses  on  them  with  greater  force  because  of  the 
higher  worth  of  the  word  and  the  deeper  misery  of 
men  without  it.  The  text  contains  nothing  specially 
bearing  on  Christian  missions,  but  it  deals  with  the 
fault  which  besets  us  all  in  our  relations  and  in  life; 


264  THE  PROVERBS  [ch.xxiv. 

and  the  wholesome  truths  which  it  utters  apply  to  our 
duties  in  regard  to  Christian  missions  because  they 
apply  to  our  duties  in  regard  to  every  misery  within 
our  reach.  They  speak  of  the  murderous  cruelty  and 
black  sin  of  negligence  to  save  any  whom  we  can  help 
from  any  sort  of  misery  which  threatens  them.  They 
appear  to  me  to  suggest  four  thoughts  which  I  would 
now  deal  with : — 

I.  The  crime  of  negligence. 

Not  to  use  any  power  is  a  sin;  to  omit  to  do  any- 
thing that  we  can  do  is  a  crime:  to  withhold  a  help 
that  we  can  render  is  to  participate  in  the  authorship 
of  all  the  misery  that  we  have  failed  to  relieve.  He 
who  neglects  to  save  a  life,  kills.  There  are  more 
murderers  than  those  who  lift  violent  hands  with 
malice  aforethought  against  a  hated  life.  Rulers  or 
communities  who  leave  people  uncared  for  to  die,  who 
suffer  swarming  millions  to  live  where  the  air  is  poison 
and  the  light  is  murky,  and  first  the  soul  and  then  the 
body,  are  dwarfed  and  die;  the  incompetent  men  in 
high  places,  and  the  indolent  ones  in  low,  whose  selfish- 
ness brings,  and  whose  blundering  blindness  allows  to 
continue,  the  conditions  that  are  fatal  to  life — on  these 
the  guilt  of  blood  lies.  Violence  slays  its  thousands, 
but  supine  negligence  slays  its  tens  of  thousands. 

And  when  we  pass  from  these  merely  physical  con- 
ditions to  think  of  the  world  and  of  the  Church  in  the 
world,  where  shall  we  find  words  weighty  and  burning 
enough  to  tell  what  fatal  cruelty  lies  in  the  unthinking 
negligence  so  characteristic  of  large  portions  of  Christ's 
professed  followers?  There  is  nothing  which  the 
ordinary  type  of  Christian,  so  called,  more  needs  than 
to  be  aroused  to  a  living  sense  of  personal  responsi- 
bility for  all  the  unalleviated  misery  of  the  world.    For 


vs.  11. 12]     CRIME  OF  NEGLIGENCE  265 

every  one  who  has  laid  the  sorrows  of  humanity  on  his 
heart,  and  has  felt  them  in  any  measure  as  his  own, 
there  are  a  hundred  to  whom  these  make  no  appeal 
and  give  no  pang.  Within  ear-shot  of  our  churches 
and  chapels  there  are  squalid  aggregations  of  stunted 
and  festering  manhood,  of  whom  it  is  only  too  true 
that  they  are  'drawn  unto  death'  and  'ready  to  be 
slain,'  and  yet  it  would  be  an  exaggeration  to  say  that 
the  bulk  of  our  congregations  cast  even  a  languid  eye 
of  compassion  upon  those,  to  say  nothing  of  stretching 
out  a  hand  to  help.  It  needs  to  be  dinned,  far  more 
than  it  is  at  present,  into  every  professing  Christian  that 
each  of  us  has  an  obligation  which  cannot  be  ignored  or 
shuffled  off,  to  acquaint  ourselves  with  the  glaring  facts 
that  force  themselves  upon  all  thoughtful  men,  and 
that  the  measure  of  our  power  is  the  measure  of  our 
obligation.  The  question.  Has  the  church  done  its  best 
to  deliver  these?  needs  to  be  sharpened  to  the  point  of 
'  Have  I  done  my  best  ? '  And  the  vision  of  multitudes 
perishing  in  the  slums  of  a  great  city  needs  to  be 
expanded  into  the  vision  of  dim  millions  perishing  in 
the  wide  world. 

II.  The  excuse  of  negligence. 

The  shuffling  plea,  'Behold  we  knew  it  not,'  is  a 
cowardly  lie.  It  admits  the  responsibility  to  knowledge 
and  pretends  an  ignorance  which  it  knows  to  be  partly 
a  false  excuse,  and  in  so  far  as  it  is  true,  to  be  our 
own  fault.  We  are  bound  to  know,  and  the  most 
ignorant  of  us  does  know,  and  cannot  help  knowing, 
enough  to  condemn  our  negligence.  How  many  of  us 
have  ever  tried  to  find  out  how  the  pariahs  of  civilisa- 
tion live  who  live  beside  us  ?  Our  ignorance  so  far  as 
it  is  real  is  the  result  of  a  sinful  indolence.  And  there 
is  a  sadder  form  of  it  in  an  ignorance  which  is  the 


266  THE  PROVERBS  [ch.xxiv. 

result  of  familiarity.  We  all  know  how  custom  dulls 
our  impressions.  It  is  well  that  it  should  be  so,  for  a 
surgeon  would  be  fit  for  little  if  he  trembled  and  was 
shaken  at  the  sight  of  the  tumour  he  had  to  work  to 
remove,  as  we  should  be;  but  his  familiarity  with 
misery  does  not  harden  him,  because  he  seeks  to  remove 
the  suffering  with  which  he  has  become  familiar.  But 
that  same  familiarity  does  harden  and  injure  the  whole 
nature  of  the  onlooker  who  does  nothing  to  alleviate  it. 
Then  there  is  an  ignorance  of  other  suffering  which  is 
the  result  of  selfish  absorption  in  one's  own  concerns. 
The  man  who  is  caring  for  himself  only,  and  whose 
thoughts  and  feelings  all  flow  in  "-he  direction  of  his 
own  success,  may  see  spread  before  him  the  most 
poignant  sorrows  without  feeling  one  throb  of  brotherly 
compassion  and  without  even  being  aware  of  what  his 
eyes  see.  So,  in  so  far  as  the  excuse  *  we  knew  it  not ' 
is  true,  it  is  no  excuse,  but  an  indictment.  It  lays  bare 
the  true  reason  of  the  criminal  negligence  as  being  a 
yet  more  criminal  callousness  as  to  the  woe  and  loss  in 
which  such  crowds  of  men  whom  we  ought  to  recognise 
as  brethren  are  sunken. 

III.  The  condemnation  of  negligence. 

The  great  example  of  God  is  put  forward  in  the  text 
as  the  contrast  to  all  this  selfish  negligence.  Note  the 
twofold  description  of  Him  given  here,  'He  that 
pondereth  the  heart,'  and  'He  that  keepeth  thy  soul.' 
The  former  of  these  presents  to  us  God's  sedulous 
watching  of  the  hearts  of  men,  in  contrast  to  our 
indolent  and  superficial  looks;  and  in  this  divine 
attitude  we  find  the  awful  condemnation  of  our  dis- 
regard of  our  fellows.  God  *  takes  pain,'  so  to  speak,  to 
see  after  His  children.  Are  they  not  bound  to  look 
lovingly  on  each  other?     God  seeks  to  know  them. 


vs.  11,12]    CRIME  OF  NEGLIGENCE  267 

Are  they  not  bound  to  know  one  another?  Lofty 
disregard  of  human  suffering  is  not  Gods  way.  Is  it 
ours  ?  He  '  looks  down  from  the  height  of  His  sanctuary 
to  hear  the  crying  of  the  prisoner.'  Should  not  we 
stoop  from  our  mole-hill  to  see  it?  God  has  not  too 
many  concerns  on  His  hands  to  mark  the  obscurest 
sorrow  and  be  ready  to  help  it.  And  shall  we  plead 
that  we  are  too  busy  with  petty  personal  concerns  to 
take  interest  in  helping  th©  sorrows  and  fighting  against 
the  sins  of  the  world  ? 

No  less  eloquently  does  the  other  name  which  is  here 
applied  to  God  rebuke  our  negligence.  '  He  preserveth 
thy  soul.'  By  His  divine  care  and  communication  of 
life,  we  live;  and  surely  the  soul  thus  preserved  is 
thereby  bound  to  be  a  minister  of  preservation  to  all 
that  are  '  ready  to  be  slain.'  The  strongest  motive  for 
seeking  to  save  others  is  that  God  has  saved  us.  Thus 
this  name  for  God  touches  closely  upon  the  great 
Christian  thought,  '  Christ  has  given  Himself  for  me.' 
And  in  that  thought  we  find  the  true  condemnation  of 
a  Christianity  which  has  not  caught  from  Him  the 
enthusiasm  for  self-surrender,  and  the  passion  for 
saving  the  outcast  and  forlorn.  If  to  be  a  Christian 
is  to  imitate  Christ,  then  the  name  has  little  applica- 
tion to  those  who  see  'them  that  are  drawn  to  death,' 
and  turn  from  them  unconcerned  and  unconscious  of 
responsibility. 

lY.  The  judgment  of  negligence. 

'  Doth  not  He  render  to  every  man  according  to  his 
works?'  There  is  such  a  judgment  both  in  the  present 
and  in  the  future  for  Christian  men  as  for  others.  And 
not  only  what  they  do,  but  what  they  inconsistently 
fail  to  do,  comes  into  the  category  of  their  works,  and 
influences  their  position.    It  does  so  in  the  present,  for 


268  THE  PROVERBS  [ch.xxiv. 

no  tnan  can  cherish  such  a  maimed  Christian  life  as 
makes  such  negligence  possible  without  robbing  him- 
self of  much  that  would  tend  to  his  own  growth  in 
grace  and  likeness  to  Jesus  Christ.  The  unfaithful 
servant  is  poorer  by  the  pound  hidden  in  the  napkin 
which  might  all  the  while  have  been  laid  out  at  interest 
with  the  money-changers,  which  would  have  increased 
the  income  whilst  the  lord  was  absent.  We  rob  our- 
selves of  blessed  sympathies  and  of  the  still  more 
blessed  joy  of  service,  and  of  the  yet  more  blessed  joy 
of  successful  effort,  by  our  indolence  and  our  negligence. 
Let  us  not  forget  that  our  works  do  follow  us  in  this 
life  as  in  the  life  to  come,  and  that  it  is  here  as  well  as 
hereafter,  that  he  that  goeth  forth  with  a  full  basket 
and  scatters  the  precious  seed  with  weeping,  and  yet 
with  joy,  shall  doubtless  come  again  bringing  his 
sheaves  with  him.  And  if  we  stretch  our  view  to  take 
in  the  life  beyond,  what  gladness  can  match  that  of  the 
man  who  shall  enter  there  with  some  who  will  be  his 
joy  and  crown  of  rejoicing  in  that  day,  and  of  whom 
he  shall  be  able  to  say,  '  Behold  I  and  the  children 
whom  Thou  hast  given  me ! ' 

I  venture  earnestly  to  appeal  to  all  my  hearers  for 
more  faithful  discharge  of  this  duty.  I  pray  you  to 
open  your  ears  to  hear,  and  your  eyes  to  see,  and  your 
hearts  to  feel,  and  last  of  all,  your  hands  to  help,  the 
miseries  of  the  world.  Solemn  duties  wait  upon  great 
privileges.  It  is  an  awful  trust  to  have  Christ  and  His 
gospel  committed  to  our  care.  We  get  it  because  from 
One  who  lived  no  life  of  luxurious  ease,  but  felt  all  the 
woes  of  humanity  which  He  redeemed,  and  forbore  not 
to  deliver  us  from  death,  though  at  the  cost  of  His  own. 
We  get  it  for  no  life  of  silken  indolence  or  selfish  dis- 
regard of  the  sorrows  of  our  brethren.    If  there  is  one 


vs.  11, 12]   THE  SLUGGARD'S  GARDEN     269 

tear  we  could  have  dried  and  didn't,  or  one  wound  we 
could  have  healed  and  didn't,  that  is  a  sin  ;  if  we  could 
have  lightened  the  great  heap  of  sorrow  by  one  grain 
and  didn't,  that  is  a  sin ;  and  if  there  be  one  soul  that 
perishes  which  we  might  have  saved  and  didn't,  the 
negligence  is  not  merely  the  omission  of  a  duty,  but 
the  doing  of  a  deed  which  will  be  'rendered  to  us 
according  to  our  works.' 


THE  SLUGGARD'S  GARDEN 

'I  went  by  the  field  of  the  slothful,  and  by  the  vineyard  of  the  man  void 
of  understanding ;  31.  And,  lo,  it  was  all  grown  over  with  thorns,  and  nettles 
had  covered  the  face  thereof,  and  the  stone  wall  thereof  was  broken  down.'— 
Provebbs  xxiv.  30,  31. 

This  picture  of  the  sluggard's  garden  seems  to  be  in- 
tended as  a  parable.  No  doubt  its  direct  simple  meaning 
is  full  of  homely  wisdom  in  full  accord  with  the  whole 
tone  of  the  Book  of  Proverbs ;  but  we  shall  scarcely 
do  justice  to  this  saying  of  the  wise  if  we  do  not 
see  in  '  the  ground  grown  over  with  thorns,'  and  *  the 
stone  wall  thereof  broken  down,'  an  apologue  of  the 
condition  of  a  soul  whose  owner  has  neglected  to 
cultivate  and  tend  it. 

I.  Note  first  who  the  slothful  man  is. 

The  first  plain  meaning  of  the  word  is  to  be  kept 
in  view.  The  whole  Book  of  Proverbs  brands  laziness 
as  the  most  prolific  source  of  poverty.  Honest  toil 
is  to  it  the  law  of  life.  It  is  never  weary  of  reiterating 
'In  the  sweat  of  thy  brow  thou  shalt  eat  bread';  and 
it  condemns  all  swift  modes  of  getting  riches  without 
labour.  No  doubt  the  primitive  simplicity  of  life  as 
set  forth  in  this  book  seems  far  behind  the  many 
ingenuities  by  which  in  our  days  the  law  is  evaded. 
How  much  of  Stock  Exchange  speculation  and  •  Com- 


270  THE  PROVERBS  [ch.xxiv. 

pany  promoters '  gambling  would  survive  the  applica- 
tion  of  the  homely  old  law  ? 

But  it  is  truer  in  the  inward  life  than  in  the  outward 
that '  the  hand  of  the  diligent  maketh  rich.'  After  all, 
the  differences  between  men  who  truly  '  succeed '  and 
the  human  failures,  which  are  so  frequent,  are  more 
moral  than  intellectual.  It  has  been  said  that  genius 
is,  after  all,  'the  capacity  for  taking  infinite  pains'; 
and  although  that  is  an  exaggerated  statement,  and 
an  incomplete  analysis,  there  is  a  great  truth  in  it, 
and  it  is  the  homely  virtue  of  hard  work  which  tells 
in  the  long  run,  and  without  which  the  most  brilliant 
talents  effect  but  little.  However  gifted  a  man  may 
be,  he  will  be  a  failure  if  he  has  not  learned  the  great 
secret  of  dogged  persistence  in  often  unwelcomed  toil. 
No  character  worth  building  up  is  built  without  con- 
tinuous effort.  If  a  man  does  not  labour  to  be  good, 
he  will  surely  become  bad.  It  is  an  old  axiom  that 
no  man  attains  superlative  wickedness  all  at  once, 
and  most  certainly  no  man  leaps  to  the  height  of  the 
goodness  possible  to  his  nature  by  one  spring.  He 
has  laboriously,  and  step  by  step,  to  climb  the  hill. 
Progress  in  moral  character  is  secured  by  long-con- 
tinued walking  upwards,  not  by  a  jump. 

We  note  that  in  our  text  'the  slothful'  is  paralleled 
by  *  the  man  void  of  understanding ' ;  and  the  parallel 
suggests  the  stupidity  in  such  a  world  as  this  of  letting 
ourselves  develop  according  to  whims,  or  inclinations, 
or  passions;  and  also  teaches  that  'understanding'  is 
meant  to  be  rigidly  and  continuously  brought  to  bear 
on  actions  as  director  and  restrainer.  If  the  ship  is 
not  to  be  wrecked  on  the  rocks  or  to  founder  at  sea, 
Wisdom's  hand  must  hold  the  helm.  Diligence  alone 
is  not  enough  unless  directed  by  *  understanding.' 


vs.  30, 31]    THE  SLUGGARD'S  GARDEN    271 

II.  What  comes  of  sloth. 

The  description  of  the  sluggard's  garden  brings  into 
view  two  things,  the  abundant,  because  unchecked, 
growth  of  profitless  weeds,  and  the  broken  down  stone 
wall.  Both  of  these  results  are  but  too  sadly  and 
evidently  true  in  regard  to  every  life  where  rigid 
and  continuous  control  has  not  been  exercised.  It  is 
a  familiar  experience  known,  alas !  to  too  many  of  us, 
that  evil  things,  of  which  the  seeds  are  in  us  all,  grow 
up  unchecked  if  there  be  not  constant  supervision  and 
self-command.  If  we  do  not  carefully  cultivate  our 
little  plot  of  garden  ground,  it  will  soon  be  overgrown 
by  weeds.  *I11  weeds  grow  apace'  as  the  homely 
wisdom  of  common  experience  crystallises  into  a  sig- 
nificant proverb.  And  Jesus  has  taught  the  sadder 
truth  that  *  thorns  spring  up  and  choke  the  word  and 
it  becometh  unfruitful.'  In  the  slothful  man's  soul 
evil  will  drive  out  good  as  surely  as  in  the  struggle 
for  existence  the  thorns  and  nettles  will  cover  the 
face  of  the  slothful  man's  garden.  In  country  places 
we  sometimes  come  across  a  ruined  house  with  what 
was  a  garden  round  it,  and  here  and  there  still  springs 
up  a  flower  seeking  for  air  and  light  in  the  midst  of 
a  smothering  mass  of  weeds.  They  needed  no  kindly 
gardener's  hand  to  make  them  grow  luxuriantly ;  it  can 
barely  put  out  a  pale  petal  unless  cared  for  and  guarded. 

But  not  only  is  there  this  unchecked  growth,  but 
'the  stone  wall  thereof  was  broken  down.'  The  soul 
was  unfenced.  The  solemn  imperative  of  duty  ceases 
to  restrain  or  to  impel  in  proportion  as  a  man  yields 
slothfully  to  the  baser  impulses  of  his  nature.  Nothing 
is  hindered  from  going  out  of,  nor  for  coming  into,  an 
unfenced  soul,  and  he  that '  hath  no  rule  over  his  own 
spirit,'  but  is  like  a  •  city  broken  down  without  walls,' 


272  THE  PROVEKBS  [ch-xxiv. 

is  certain  sooner  or  later  to  let  much  go  forth  from 
that  spirit  that  should  have  been  rigidly  shut  up,  and 
to  let  many  an  enemy  come  in  that  will  capture  the 
city.  It  is  not  yet  safe  to  let  any  of  the  fortifications 
fall  into  disrepair,  and  they  can  only  be  kept  in  their 
massive  strength  by  continuous  vigilance. 

HI.  How  sloth  excuses  itself. 

Our  text  is  followed  at  the  distance  of  one  verse 
with  what  seemed  to  be  the  words  of  the  sluggard 
in  answer  to  the  attempt  to  awake  him :  '  Yet  a  little 
sleep,  a  little  slumber,  a  little  folding  of  the  hands  to 
sleep.'  They  are  a  quotation  from  an  earlier  chapter 
(ch.  vi.)  where  '  His  Laziness '  is  sent  to  '  consider  the 
ways  of  the  ant  and  be  wise.'  They  are  a  drowsy  peti- 
tion which  does  not  dispute  the  wisdom  of  the  call  to 
awake,  but  simply  craves  for  a  little  more  luxurious 
laziness  from  which  he  has  unwillingly  been  aroused. 
And  is  it  not  true  that  we  admit  too  late  the  force  of 
the  summons  and  yet  shrink  from  answering  it?  Do 
we  not  cheat  ourselves  and  try  to  deceive  God  with  the 
promise  that  we  will  set  about  amendment  soon  ?  This 
indolent  sleeper  asks  only  for  a  little:  'A  little  sleep, 
a  little  slumber,  a  little  folding  of  the  hands  to  sleep.' 
Do  we  not  all  know  that  mood  of  mind  which  con- 
fesses our  slothf  ulness  and  promises  to  be  wide  awake 
to-morrow  but  would  fain  bargain  to  be  left  undis- 
turbed to-day?  The  call  'Awake  thou  that  sleepest 
and  arise  from  the  dead ! '  rings  from  Christ's  lips  in 
the  ears  of  every  man,  and  he  who  answers,  'I  will 
presently,  but  must  sleep  a  little  longer,'  may  seem  to 
himself  to  have  complied  with  the  call,  but  has  really 
refused  it.  The  '  little  more '  generally  becomes  much 
more ;  and  the  answer  '  presently,'  alas !  too  often 
becomes  the  answer  'never.'    When  a  man  is  roused 


vs.  30, 31]    THE  SLUGGARD'S  GARDEN    273 

so  as  to  be  half  awake,  the  only  safety  for  him  is 
immediately  to  rise  and  clothe  himself ;  the  head  that 
drowsily  droops  back  on  the  pillow  after  he  has  heard 
the  morning's  call,  is  likely  to  lie  there  long.  Now^ 
not  'by-and-by'  is  the  time  to  shake  off  the  bonds 
of  sloth  to  cultivate  our  garden. 

IV.  How  sloth  ends. 

The  sleeper's  slumber  is  dramatically  represented  as 
being  awakened  by  armed  robbers  who  bring  a  grim 
awakening.  *  Poverty '  and  '  want '  break  in  on  his  '  fold- 
ing hands  to  sleep.'  That  is  true  as  regards  the  out- 
ward life,  where  indulgence  in  literal  slothfulness 
brings  w^ant,  and  the  whole  drift  of  things  executes 
on  the  sluggard  the  sentence  that  if  'any  man  will 
not  work,  neither  shall  he  eat.' 

But  the  picture  is  more  sadly  and  fatally  true  con- 
cerning the  man  who  has  made  his  earthly  life  'a 
little  sleep'  as  concerns  heavenly  things,  and  in  spite 
of  his  beseechings,  is  roused  to  life  and  consciousness 
of  himself  and  of  God  by  death.  That  man's  '  poverty ' 
in  his  lack  of  all  that  is  counted  as  wealth  in  the 
world  of  realities  to  which  he  goes  will  indeed  come 
as  a  robber.  I  would  press  upon  you  all  the  plain 
question.  Is  this  fatal  slothfulness  characteristic  of 
me?  It  may  co-exist  with,  and  indeed  is  often  the 
consequence  of  vehement  energy  and  continuous  work 
to  secure  wealth,  or  wisdom,  or  material  good;  and 
the  contrast  between  a  man  who  is  all  eagerness  in 
regard  to  the  things  that  don't  matter,  and  all  careless- 
ness in  regard  to  the  things  that  do,  is  the  tragedy 
of  life  amongst  us.  My  friend!  if  your  garden  has 
been  suffered  by  you  to  be  overgrown  with  weeds, 
be  sure  of  this,  that  one  day  you  will  be  awakened 
from  the  slumber  that  you  would  fain  continue,  and 

s 


274  THE  PROVERBS  [ch.xxv. 

will  find  yourself  in  a  life  where  your  '  poverty '  will 
come  as  a  robber  and  your  want  of  all  which  there 
is  counted  treasure  *  as  an  armed  man.' 

One  word  more.  Christ's  parable  of  the  sower  may 
be  brought  into  relationship  with  this  parable."  He 
sows  the  true  seed  in  our  hearts,  but  when  sown,  it, 
too,  has  to  be  cared  for  and  tended.  If  it  is  sown 
in  the  sluggard's  garden,  it  will  bring  forth  few  ears, 
and  the  tares  will  choke  the  wheat. 


AN  UNWALLED   CITY 

*  He  that  hath  no  mie  orer  his  own  spirit  is  like  a  city  that  is  broken  down, 
and  without  walla.'— Proverbs  xxv.  28. 

The  text  gives  us  a  picture  of  a  state  of  society  when 
an  unwalled  city  is  no  place  for  men  to  dwell  in.  In 
the  Europe  of  to-day  there  are  still  fortified  places, 
but  for  the  most  part,  battlements  are  turned  into 
promenades ;  the  gateways  are  gateless ;  the  sweet 
flowers  blooming  where  armed  feet  used  to  tread ;  and 
men  live  securely  without  bolts  and  bars.  But  their 
spirits  cannot  yet  afford  to  raise  their  defences  and 
fling  themselves  open  to  all  comers. 

We  may  see  here  three  points :  the  city  defenceless, 
or  human  nature  as  it  is;  the  city  defended,  human 
nature  as  it  may  be  in  Christ;  the  city  needing  no 
defence,  human  nature  as  it  will  be  in  heaven. 

I.  The  city  defenceless,  or  human  nature  as  it  is. 

Here  we  are  in  a  state  of  warfare  which  calls  for 
constant  shutting  out  of  enemies.  Temptations  are 
everywhere;  our  foes  compass  us  like  bees;  evils  of 
many  sorts  seduce.  We  can  picture  to  ourselves 
some  little  garrison  holding  a  lonely  outpost  against 


V.28]  AN  UN  WALLED  CITY  275 

lurking  savages  ready  to  attack  if  ever  the  defenders 
slacken  their  vigilance  for  a  moment.  And  that  is 
the  truer  picture  of  human  nature  as  it  is  than  the 
one  by  which  most  men  are  deluded.  Life  is  not  a 
playground,  but  an  arena  of  grim,  earnest  fighting. 
No  man  does  right  in  his  sleep;  no  man  does  right 
without  a  struggle. 

The  need  for  continual  vigilance  and  self-control 
comes  from  the  very  make  of  our  souls,  for  our  nature 
is  not  a  democracy,  but  a  kingdom.  In  us  all  there 
are  passions,  desires,  affections,  all  of  which  may  lead 
to  vice  or  to  virtue:  and  all  of  which  evidently  call 
out  for  direction,  for  cultivation,  and  often  for  re- 
pression. Then  there  are  peculiarities  of  individual 
character  which  need  watching  lest  they  become 
excessive  and  sinful.  Further,  there  are  qualities 
which  need  careful  cultivation  and  stimulus  to  bring 
them  into  due  proportion.  We  each  of  us  receive,  as 
it  were,  an  undeveloped  self,  and  have  entrusted  to  us 
potential  germs  which  come  to  nothing,  or  shoot  up 
with  a  luxuriance  that  stifles  unless  we  exercise  a  con- 
trolling power.  Besides  all  this,  we  all  carry  in  us 
tendencies  which  are  positively,  and  only,  sinful.  There 
would  be  no  temptation  if  there  were  no  such. 

But  the  slightest  inspection  of  our  own  selves  clearly 
points  out,  not  only  what  in  us  needs  to  be  con- 
trolled, but  that  in  us  which  is  meant  to  control.  The 
will  is  regal;  conscience  is  meant  to  govern  the  will, 
and  its  voice  is  but  the  echo  of  God's  law. 

But,  while  all  this  is  true,  it  is  too  sadly  true  that 
the  accomplishment  of  this  ideal  is  impossible  in  our 
own  strength.  Our  own  sad  experience  tells  us  that  we 
cannot  govern  ourselves ;  and  our  observations  of  our 
brethren  but  too  surely  indicate  that  they  too  are  the 


276  THE  PROVERBS  [ch.xxv. 

prey  of  rebellious,  anarchical  powers  within,  and  of 
temptations,  against  the  rush  of  which  they  and  we 
are  as  powerless  as  a  voyager  in  a  bark-canoe,  caught 
in  the  fatal  drift  of  Niagara.  Conscience  has  a  voice, 
but  no  hands ;  it  can  speak,  but  if  its  voice  fails,  it 
cannot  hold  us  back.  From  its  chair  it  can  bid  the 
waves  breaking  at  our  feet  roll  back,  as  the  Saxon 
king  did,  but  their  tossing  surges  are  deaf.  As  help- 
less as  the  mud  walls  of  some  Indian  hill-fort  against 
modern  artillery,  is  the  defence,  in  one's  own  strength, 
of  one's  own  self  against  the  world.  We  would  gladly 
admit  that  the  feeblest  may  do  much  to  '  keep  himself 
unspotted  from  the  world ' ;  but  we  must,  if  we  recog- 
nise facts,  confess  that  the  strongest  cannot  do  all. 
No  man  can  alone  completely  control  his  own  nature ; 
no  man,  unenlightened  by  God,  has  a  clear,  full  view  of 
duty,  nor  a  clear  view  of  himself.  Always  there  is 
some  unguarded  place : 

'  Unless  above  himself  he  can 
Erect  himself,  how  mean  a  thing  is  man  1 ' 

but  no  man  can  so  lift  himself  so  as  that  self  will  not 
drag  him  down.  The  walls  are  broken  down  and  the 
troops  of  the  spoilers  sack  the  city. 

II.  The  defended  city,  or  human  nature  as  it  may  be 
in  Christ. 

If  our  previous  remarks  are  true,  they  give  us 
material  for  judging  how  far  the  counsels  of  some 
very  popular  moral  teachers  should  be  followed.  It 
is  a  very  old  advice,  'know  thyself;  and  it  is  a  very 
modern  one  that 

'  Self -reverence,  self-knowledge,  self-control 
Lead  life  to  sovereign  power.' 

But  if  these  counsels  are  taken  absolutely  and  with- 


V  28]  AN  UNWALLED  CITY  277 

out  reference  to  Christ  and  His  work,  they  are 
•  counsels  of  despair,'  demanding  what  we  cannot  give, 
and  promising  what  they  cannot  bestow.  When  we 
know  Christ,  we  shall  know  ourselves  ;  when  He  is  the 
self  of  ourselves,  then,  and  only  then,  shall  we  rever- 
ence and  can  we  control  the  inner  man.  The  city  of 
Mansoul  will  then  be  defended  when  '  the  peace  of  God 
keeps  our  hearts  and  minds  in  Jesus.' 

He  who  submits  himself  to  Christ  is  lord  of  himself 
as  none  else  are.  He  has  a  light  within  which  teaches 
him  what  is  sin.  He  has  a  love  within  which  puts  out 
the  flame  of  temptation,  as  the  sun  does  a  coal  fire. 
He  has  a  motive  to  resist ;  he  has  power  for  resistance ; 
he  has  hope  in  resisting.  Only  thus  are  the  walls 
broken  down  rebuilded.  And  as  Christ  builds  our  city 
on  firmer  foundations,  He  will  appear  in  His  glory, 
and  will  'lay  the  windows  in  agates,  and  all  thy 
borders  in  precious  stones.'  The  sure  way  to  bring  our 
ruined  earth,  '  without  form  and  void,'  into  a  cosmos 
of  light  and  beauty,  is  to  open  our  spirit  for  the  Spirit 
of  God  to  'brood  upon  the  face  of  the  waters.'  Other- 
wise the  attempts  to  rule  over  our  own  spirit  will 
surely  fail;  but  if  we  let  Christ  rule  over  our  spirit, 
then  it  will  rule  itself. 

But  let  us  ever  remember  that  he  who  thus  submits  to 
Christ,  and  can  truly  say,  *  I  live,  yet  not  I,  but  Christ 
liveth  in  me^  still  needs  defence.  The  strife  does  not 
thereby  cease ;  the  enemies  still  swarm ;  sin  is  not 
removed.  There  will  be  war  to  the  end,  and  war  for 
ever ;  but  He  will  '  keep  our  heads  in  the  day  of 
battle ' ;  and  though  often  we  may  be  driven  from  the 
walls,  and  outposts  may  be  lost,  and  gaping  breaches 
made,  yet  the  citadel  shall  be  safe.  If  only  we  see  to 
it  that '  He  is  the  glory  in  the  midst  of  us,'  He  will  be 


278  THE  PROVERBS  [ch.xxv. 

*  a  wall  of  fire  round  about  us.'  Our  nature  as  it  may 
be  in  Christ  is  a  walled  city  as  needing  defence,  and  as 
possessing  the  defence  which  it  needs. 

III.  The  city  defenceless,  and  needing  no  defence; 
that  is,  human  nature  as  it  will  be  hereafter. 

'The  gates  shall  not  be  shut  day  nor  night,'  for 
'everything  that  defileth'  is  without.  We  know  but 
little  of  that  future,  what  we  do  know  will,  surely, 
be  theirs  who  here  have  been  '  guarded  by  the  power 
of  God,  through  faith,  unto  salvation.'  That  salvation 
will  bring  with  it  the  end  for  the  need  of  guardianship ; 
though  it  leaves  untouched  the  blessed  dependence, 
we  shall  stand  secure  when  it  is  impossible  to  fall. 
And  that  impossibility  will  be  realised,  partly,  as  we 
know,  from  change  in  surroundings,  partly  from  the 
dropping  away  of  flesh,  partly  from  the  entire  har- 
mony of  our  souls  with  the  will  of  God.  Our  ignor- 
ance of  that  future  is  great,  but  our  knowledge  of  it  is 
greater,  and  our  certainty  of  it  is  greatest  of  all. 

This  is  what  we  may  become.  Dear  friends !  toil  no 
longer  at  the  endless,  hopeless  task  of  ruling  those 
turbulent  souls  of  yours;  you  can  never  rebuild  the 
walls  already  fallen.  Give  up  toiling  to  attain  calmness, 
peace,  self-command.  Let  Christ  do  all  for  you,  and 
let  Him  in  to  dwell  in  you  and  be  all  to  you.  Builded 
on  the  true  Rock,  we  shall  stand  stately  and  safe  amid 
the  din  of  war.  He  will  watch  over  us  and  dwell  in  us, 
and  we  shall  be  as  '  a  city  set  on  a  hill,'  impregnable, 
a  virgin  city.  So  may  it  be  with  each  of  us  while  strife 
shall  last,  and  hereafter  we  may  quietly  hope  to  be  as 
a  city  without  walls,  and  needing  none ;  for  they  that 
hated  us  shall  be  far  away,  for  between  us  and  them 
is  '  a  great  gulf  fixed,'  so  that  they  cannot  cross  it  to 
disturb  us  any  more ;  and  we  shall  dwell  in  the  city  of 


y.28]  THE  WEIGHT  OF  SAND  279 

God,  of  which  the  name  is  Salem,  the  city  of  peace, 
whose  King  is  Himself,  its  Defender  and  its  Bock,  ita 
Fortress  and  its  high  Tower. 


THE  WEIGHT  OF  SAND 

'  The  sand  is  weighty.*— Proverbs,  xxvii.  3. 

This  Book  of  Proverbs  has  a  very  wholesome  horror  of 
the  character  which  it  calls  '  a  fool ' ;  meaning  thereby, 
not  so  much  intellectual  feebleness  as  moral  and  re- 
ligious obliquity,  which  are  the  stupidest  things  that  a 
man  can  be  guilty  of.  My  text  comes  from  a  very 
picturesque  and  vivid  description,  by  way  of  compari- 
son, of  the  fatal  effects  of  such  a  man's  passion.  The 
proverb-maker  compares  two  heavy  things,  stones  and 
sand,  and  says  that  they  are  feathers  in  comparison 
with  the  immense  lead-like  weight  of  such  a  man's 
wrath. 

Now  I  have  nothing  more  to  do  with  the  immediate 
application  of  my  text.  I  want  to  make  a  parable  out 
of  it.  What  is  lighter  than  a  grain  of  sand  ?  What  is 
heavier  than  a  bagful  of  it  ?  As  the  grains  fall  one  by 
one,  how  easily  they  can  be  blown  away !  Let  them 
gather,  and  they  bury  temples,  and  crush  the  solid 
masonry  of  pyramids.  'Sand  is  weighty.'  The  ae- 
cumulation  of  light  things  is  overwhelmingly  ponder- 
ous. Are  there  any  such  things  in  our  lives  ?  If  there 
are,  what  ought  we  to  do  ?  So  you  get  the  point  of  view 
from  which  I  want  to  look  at  the  words  of  our  text. 

I.  The  first  suggestion  that  I  make  is  that  they 
remind  us  of  the  supreme  importance  of  trifles. 

If  trivial  acts  are  unimportant,  what  signifies  the  life 
of  man  ?    For  ninety-nine  and  a  half  per  cent,  of  every 


280  THE  PROVERBS  [ch.xxvii. 

man's  life  is  made  up  of  these  light  nothings;  and 
unless  there  is  potential  greatness  in  them,  and  they 
are  of  importance,  then  life  is  all  'a  tale  told  by  an 
idiot,  full  of  sound  and  fury,  signifying  nothing.' 
Small  things  make  life ;  and  if  they  are  small,  then 
it  is  so  too. 

But  remember,  too,  that  the  supreme  importance  of 
so-called  trivial  actions  is  seen  in  this,  that  there  may 
be  every  bit  as  much  of  the  noblest  things  that  belong 
to  humanity  condensed  in,  and  brought  to  bear  upon, 
the  veriest  trifle  that  a  man  can  do,  as  on  the  greatest 
things  that  he  can  perform.  We  are  very  poor  judges 
of  what  is  great  and  what  is  little.  We  have  a  very 
vulgar  estimate  that  noise  and  notoriety  and  the  secur- 
ing of,  not  great  but  'big,'  results  of  a  material  kind 
make  the  deeds  by  which  they  are  secured,  great  ones. 
And  we  think  that  it  is  the  quiet  things,  those  that  do 
not  tell  outside  at  all,  that  are  the  small  ones. 

Well !  here  is  a  picture  for  you.  Half-a-dozen  shabby, 
travel-stained  Jews,  sitting  by  a  river- side  upon  the 
grass,  talking  to  a  handful  of  women  outside  the  gates 
of  a  great  city.  Years  before  that,  there  had  been 
what  the  world  calls  a  great  event,  almost  on  the  same 
ground  —  a  sanguinary  fight,  that  had  settled  the 
emperorship  of  the  then  civilised  world,  for  a  time. 
I  want  to  know  whether  the  first  preaching  of  the 
Gospel  in  Europe  by  the  Apostle  Paul,  or  the  battle 
of  Philippi,  was  the  great  event,  and  which  of  the  two 
was  the  little  one.  I  vote  for  the  Jews  on  the  grass, 
and  let  all  the  noise  of  the  fight,  though  it  reverberated 
through  the  world  for  a  bit,  die  away,  as  *  a  little  dust 
that  rises  up,  and  is  lightly  laid  again.'  Not  the  noisy 
events  are  the  great  ones;  and  as  much  true  greatness 
may  be  manifested  in  a  poor  woman  stitching  in  her 


V.3]  THE  WEIGHT  OF  SAND  281 

garret  as  in  some  of  the  things  that  have  rung  through 
the  world  and  excited  all  manner  of  vulgar  applause. 
Trifles  may  be,  and  often  are,  the  great  things  in  life. 

And  then  remember,  too,  how  the  most  trivial  actions 
have  a  strange  knack  of  all  at  once  leading  on  to  large 
results,  beyond  what  could  have  been  expected.  A  man 
shifts  his  seat  in  a  railway  carriage,  from  some  pass- 
ing whim,  and  five  minutes  afterwards  there  comes  a 
collision,  and  the  bench  where  he  had  been  sitting  is 
splintered  up,  and  the  place  where  he  is  sitting  is  un- 
touched, and  the  accidental  move  has  saved  his  life. 
According  to  the  old  story  a  boy,  failing  in  applying 
for  a  situation,  stoops  down  in  the  courtyard  and  picks 
up  a  pin,  and  the  millionaire  sees  him  through  the 
window,  and  it  makes  his  fortune.  We  cannot  tell 
what  may  come  of  anything;  and  since  we  do  not 
know  the  far  end  of  our  deeds,  let  us  be  quite  sure  that 
we  have  got  the  near  end  of  them  right.  Whatever 
may  be  the  issue,  let  us  look  after  the  motive,  and  then 
all  will  be  right.  Small  seeds  grow  to  be  great  trees, 
and  in  this  strange  and  inexplicable  network  of  things 
which  men  call  circumstances,  and  Christians  call 
Providence,  the  only  thing  certain  is  that '  great'  and 
*  small '  all  but  cease  to  be  a  tenable,  and  certainly  alto- 
gether cease  to  be  an  important  distinction. 

Then  another  thing  which  I  would  have  you  re- 
member is,  that  it  is  these  trivial  actions  which,  in  their 
accumulated  force,  make  character.  Men  are  not  made 
by  crises.  The  crises  reveal  what  we  have  made  our- 
selves by  the  trifles.  The  way  in  which  we  do  the 
little  things  forms  the  character  according  to  which  we 
shall  act  when  the  great  things  come.  If  the  crew  of 
a  man-of-war  were  not  exercised  at  boat  and  fire  drill 
during  many  a  calm  day,  when  all  was  safe,  what 


282  THE  PROVERBS  [ch.xxvil 

would  become  of  them  when  tempests  were  raging,  or 
flames  breaking  through  the  bulk-heads  ?  It  is  no  time 
to  learn  drill  then.  And  we  must  make  our  characters 
by  the  way  in  which,  day  out  and  day  in,  we  do  little 
things,  and  find  in  them  fields  for  the  great  virtues 
which  will  enable  us  to  front  the  crises  of  our  fate  un 
blenching,  and  to  master  whatsoever  difficulties  come 
in  our  path.  Geologists  nowadays  distrust,  for  the 
most  part,  theories  which  have  to  invoke  great  forces 
in  order  to  mould  the  face  of  a  country.  They  tell  us 
that  the  valley,  with  its  deep  sides  and  wide  opening  to 
the  sky,  may  have  been  made  by  the  slow  operation  of 
a  tiny  brooklet  that  trickles  now  down  at  its  base,  and 
by  erosion  of  the  atmosphere.  So  we  shape  ourselves 
— and  that  is  a  great  thing — by  the  way  we  do  small 
things. 

Therefore,  I  say  to  you,  dear  friends !  think  solemnly 
and  reverently  of  this  awful  life  of  ours.  Clear  your 
minds  of  the  notion  that  anything  is  small  which  offers 
to  you  the  alternative  of  being  done  in  a  right  way  or 
in  a  wrong;  and  recognise  this  as  a  fact — 'sand  is 
weighty,'  trifles  are  of  supreme  importance. 

II.  Now,  secondly,  let  me  ask  you  to  take  this  saying 
as  suggesting  the  overwhelming  weight  of  small  sins. 

That  is  only  an  application  in  one  direction  of  the 
general  principle  that  I  have  been  trying  to  lay  down ; 
but  it  is  one  of  such  great  importance  that  I  wish  to 
deal  with  it  separately.  And  my  point  is  this,  that  the 
accumulated  pressure  upon  a  man  of  a  multitude  of 
perfectly  trivial  faults  and  transgressions  makes  up  a 
tremendous  aggregate  that  weighs  upon  him  with 
awful  ponderousness. 

Let  me  remind  you,  to  begin  with,  that,  properly 
speaking,  the  words  *  great '  and  *  small '  should  not  be 


V.3]  THE  WEIGHT  OF  SAND  283 

applied  in  reference  to  things  about  which  'right'  or 
*  wrong '  are  the  proper  words  to  employ.  Or,  to  put  it 
into  plainer  language,  it  is  as  absurd  to  talk  about  the 
'  size '  of  a  sin,  as  it  is  to  take  the  superficial  area  of  a 
picture  as  a  test  of  its  greatness.  The  magnitude  of  a 
transgression  does  not  depend  on  the  greatness  of  the 
act  which  transgresses — according  to  human  standards 
— but  on  the  intensity  with  which  the  sinful  element  is 
working  in  it.  For  acts  make  crimes,  but  motives 
make  sins.  If  you  take  a  bit  of  prussic  acid,  and  bruise 
it  down,  every  little  microscopic  fragment  will  have 
the  poisonous  principle  in  it ;  and  it  is  very  irrelevant 
to  ask  whether  it  is  as  big  as  a  mountain  or  small  as  a 
grain  of  dust,  it  is  poison  all  the  same.  So  to  talk 
about  magnitude  in  regard  to  sins,  is  rather  to  intro- 
duce a  foreign  consideration.  But  still,  recognising 
that  there  is  a  reality  in  the  distinction  that  people 
make  between  great  sins  and  small  ones,  though  it  is 
a  superficial  distinction,  and  does  not  go  down  to  the 
bottom  of  things,  let  us  deal  with  it  now. 

I  say,  then,  that  small  sins,  by  reason  of  their  numer- 
ousness,  have  a  terrible  accumulative  power.  They  are 
like  the  green  flies  on  our  rose-bushes,  or  the  microbes 
that  our  medical  friends  talk  so  much  about  nowadays. 
Like  them,  their  power  of  mischief  does  not  in  the  least 
degree  depend  on  their  magnitude,  and  like  them, 
they  have  a  tremendous  capacity  of  reproduction.  It 
would  be  easier  to  find  a  man  that  had  not  done  any  one 
sin  than  to  find  out  a  man  that  had  only  done  it  once. 
And  it  would  be  easier  to  find  a  man  that  had  done  no 
evil  than  a  man  who  had  not  been  obliged  to  make  the 
second  edition  of  his  sin  an  enlarged  one.  For  this  is 
the  present  Nemesis  of  all  evil,  that  it  requires  repeti- 
tion, partly  to  still  conscience,  partly  to  satisfy  excited 


284  THE  PROVERBS  [ch.  xxvii. 

tastes  and  desires ;  so  that  animal  indulgence  in  drink 
and  the  like  is  a  type  of  what  goes  on  in  the  inner  life 
of  every  man,  in  so  far  as  the  second  dose  has  to  be 
stronger  than  the  first  in  order  to  produce  an  equiva- 
lent effect ;  and  so  on  ad  infinitum. 

And  then  remember  that  all  our  evil  doings,  however 
insignificant  they  may  be,  have  a  strange  affinity  with 
one  another,  so  that  you  will  find  that  to  go  wrong  in 
one  direction  almost  inevitably  leads  to  a  whole  series 
of  consequential  transgressions  of  one  sort  or  another. 
You  remember  the  old  story  about  the  soldier  that  was 
smuggled  into  a  fortress  concealed  in  a  hay  cart,  and 
opened  the  gates  of  a  virgin  citadel  to  his  allies  outside. 
Every  evil  thing,  great  or  small,  that  we  admit  into 
our  lives,  still  more  into  our  hearts,  is  charged  with  the 
same  errand  as  he  had : — '  Set  wide  the  door  when  you 
are  inside,  and  let  us  all  come  in  after  you.'  *  He  taketh 
with  him  seven  other  spirits  worse  than  himself,  and 
they  dwell  there.'  'None  of  them,'  says  one  of  the 
prophets,  describing  the  doleful  creatures  that  haunt 
the  ruins  of  a  deserted  city,  '  shall  by  any  means  want 
its  mate,'  and  the  satyrs  of  the  islands  and  of  the  woods 
join  together  !  and  hold  high  carnival  in  the  city.  And 
so, brethren!  our  little  transgressions  open  the  door  for 
great  ones,  and  every  sin  makes  us  more  accessible  to 
the  assaults  of  every  other. 

So  let  me  remind  you  how  here,  in  these  little  un- 
numbered acts  of  trivial  transgression  which  scarcely 
produce  any  effect  on  conscience  or  on  memory,  but 
make  up  so  large  a  portion  of  so  many  of  our  lives,  lies 
one  of  the  most  powerful  instruments  for  making  us 
what  we  are.  If  we  indulge  in  slight  acts  of  trans- 
gression be  sure  of  this,  that  we  shall  pass  from  them 
to  far  greater  ones.    For  one  man  that  leaps  or  falls  all 


V.3]  THE  WEIGHT  OF  SAND  285 

at  once  into  sin  which  the  world  calls  gross,  there  are 
a  thousand  that  slide  into  it.  The  storm  only  blows 
down  the  trees  whose  hearts  have  been  eaten  out  and 
their  roots  loosened.  And  when  you  see  a  man  having 
a  reputation  for  wisdom  and  honour  all  at  once  coming 
crash  down  and  disclosing  his  baseness,  be  sure  that  he 
began  with  small  deflections  from  the  path  of  right. 
The  evil  works  underground ;  and  if  we  yield  to  little 
temptations,  when  great  ones  come  we  shall  fall  their 
victims. 

Let  me  remind  you,  too,  that  there  is  another  sense 
in  which  'sand  is  weighty.'  You  may  as  well  be 
crushed  under  a  sandhill  as  under  a  mountain  of 
marble.  It  matters  not  which.  The  accumulated 
weight  of  the  one  is  as  great  as  that  of  the  other. 
And  I  wish  to  lay  upon  the  consciences  of  all  that  are 
listening  to  me  now  this  thought,  that  an  overwhelm- 
ing weight  of  guilt  results  from  the  accumulation  of 
little  sins.  Dear  friends !  I  do  not  desire  to  preach  a 
gospel  of  fear,  but  I  cannot  help  feeling  that,  very 
largely,  in  this  day,  the  ministration  of  the  Christian 
Church  is  defective  in  that  it  does  not  give  sufficient, 
though  sad  and  sympathetic,  prominence  to  the  plain 
teaching  of  Christ  and  of  the  New  Testament  as  to 
tuture  retribution  for  present  sin.  We  shall  *  every 
one  of  us  give  account  of  himself  to  God ' ;  and  if  the 
account  is  long  enough  it  will  foot  up  to  an  enormous 
sum,  though  each  item  may  be  only  halfpence.  The 
weight  of  a  lifetime  of  little  sins  will  be  enough  to 
crush  a  man  down  with  guilt  and  responsibility  when 
he  stands  before  that  Judge.  That  is  all  true,  and  you 
know  it,  and  I  beseech  you,  take  it  to  your  hearts, 
•Sand  is  weighty.'  Little  sins  have  to  be  accounted 
for,  and  may  crush. 


286  THE  PROVERBS  [ch.  xxvii. 

III.  And  now,  lastly,  let  me  ask  you  to  consider  one 
or  two  of  the  plain,  practical  issues  of  such  thoughts 
as  these. 

And,  first,  I  would  say  that  these  considerations  set 
in  a  very  clear  light  the  absolute  necessity  for  all- 
round  and  ever-wakeful  watchfulness  over  ourselves. 
A  man  in  the  tropics  does  not  say,  'Mosquitoes  are 
so  small  that  it  does  not  matter  if  two  or  three  of  them 
get  inside  my  bed-curtains.'  He  takes  care  that  not 
one  is  there  before  he  lays  himself  down  to  sleep. 
There  seems  to  be  nothing  more  sad  than  the  com- 
placent, easy-going  way  in  which  men  allow  themselves 
to  keep  their  higher  moral  principles  and  their  more 
rigid  self-examination  for  the  'great'  things,  as  they 
suppose,  and  let  the  little  things  often  take  care  of 
themselves.  What  would  you  think  of  the  captain  of 
a  steamer  who  in  calm  weather  sailed  by  rule  of  thumb, 
only  getting  out  his  sextant  when  storms  began  to 
blow?  And  what  about  a  man  that  lets  the  myriad 
trivialities  that  make  up  a  day  pass  in  and  out  of  his 
heart  as  they  will,  and  never  arrests  any  of  them  at 
the  gate  with  a  'How  camest  thou  in  hither?'  '  Look 
after  the  pence,  and  the  pounds  will  look  after  them- 
selves.' Look  after  your  trivial  acts,  and,  take  my 
word  for  it,  the  great  ones  will  be  as  they  ought  to  be. 

Again,  may  not  this  thought  somehow  take  down 
our  easy-going  and  self-complacent  estimate  of  our- 
selves? I  have  no  doubt  that  there  are  a  number  of 
people  in  my  audience  just  now  who  have  been  more 
or  less  consciously  saying  to  themselves  whilst  I  have 
been  going  on,  'What  have  /  to  do  with  all  this  talk 
about  sin,  sin,  sin  ?  I  am  a  decent  kind  of  a  man.  I 
do  all  the  duties  of  my  daily  life,  and  nobody  can  say 
that  the  white  of  my  eyes  is  black.     I  have  done  no 


V.3]  THE  WEIGHT  OF  SAND  287 

great  transgressions.  What  is  it  all  about?  It  has 
nothing  to  do  with  me.' 

Well,  my  friend  !  it  has  this  to  do  with  you — that  in 
your  life  there  are  a  whole  host  of  things  which  only 
a  very  superficial  estimate  hinders  you  from  recog- 
nising to  be  what  they  are — small  deeds,  but  great  sins. 
Is  it  a  small  thing  to  go,  as  some  of  you  do  go  on  from 
year  to  year,  with  your  conduct  and  your  thoughts 
and  your  loves  and  your  desires  utterly  unaffected  by 
the  fact  that  there  is  a  God  in  heaven,  and  that  Jesus 
Christ  died  for  you  ?  Is  that  a  small  thing  ?  It  mani- 
fests itself  in  a  great  many  insignificant  actions.  That 
I  grant  you ;  and  you  are  a  most  respectable  man,  and 
you  keep  the  commandments  as  well  as  you  can.  But 
'  the  God  in  whose  hand  thy  breath  is,  and  whose  are 
all  thy  ways,  hast  thou  not  glorified.'  I  say  that  that 
is  not  a  small  sin. 

So,  dear  brethren !  I  beieech  you  judge  yourselves  by 
this  standard.  I  charge  none  of  you  with  gross  iniqui- 
ties. I  know  nothing  about  that.  But  I  do  appeal  to 
you  all,  as  I  do  to  myself,  whether  we  must  not 
recognise  the  fact  that  an  accumulated  multitude  of 
transgressions  which  are  only  superficially  small,  in 
their  aggregate  weigh  upon  us  with  *  a  weight  heavy 
as  frost,  and  deep  almost  as  life.' 

Last  of  all,  this  being  the  case,  should  we  not  all  turn 
ourselves  with  lowly  hearts,  with  recognition  of  our 
transgressions,  acknowledging  that  whether  it  be  five 
hundred  or  fifty  pence  that  we  owe,  we  have  nothing 
to  pay,  and  betake  ourselves  to  Him  who  alone  can 
deliver  us  from  the  habit  and  power  of  these  small 
accumulated  faults,  and  who  alone  can  lift  the  burden 
of  guilt  and  responsibility  from  off  our  shoulders  ?  If 
you  irrigate  the  sand  it  becomes  fruitful  soil.    Christ 


288  THE  PROVERBS  [ch.  xxxi. 

brings  to  us  the  river  of  the  water  of  life ;  the  inspiring, 
the  quickening,  the  fructifying  power  of  the  new  life 
that  He  bestows,  and  the  sand  may  become  soil,  and 
the  wilderness  blossom  as  the  rose.  A  heavy  burden 
lies  on  our  shoulders.  Ah !  yes !  but  *  Behold  the  Lamb 
of  God  that  beareth  away  the  sins  of  the  world ! '  What 
was  it  that  crushed  Him  down  beneath  the  olives  of 
Gethsemane?  What  was  it  that  made  Him  cry,  *My 
God!  Why  hast  Thou  forsaken  me?'  I  know  no 
answer  but  one,  for  which  the  world's  gratitude  is  all 
too  small.  '  The  Lord  hath  laid  on  Him  the  iniquity  of 
us  all.' 

*  Sand  is  weighty,'  but  Christ  has  borne  the  burden. 
'  Cast  thy  burden  upon  the  Lord,'  and  it  will  drop  from 
your  emancipated  shoulders,  and  they  will  henceforth 
bear  only  the  light  burden  of  His  love. 


PORTRAIT  OF  A  MATRON 

'Who  can  find  a  virtuous  woman?  for  her  price  is  far  above  rubies.  11.  The 
heart  of  her  husband  doth  safely  trust  in  her,  so  that  he  shall  have  no  need  of 
spoil.  12.  She  will  do  him  good,  and  not  evil,  all  the  days  of  her  life.  13.  She 
8eeketh  wool,  and  flax,  and  worketh  willingly  with  her  hands.  14.  She  is  like  the 
merchants'  ships ;  she  bringeth  her  food  from  afar.  15.  She  riseth  also  while  it  is 
yet  night,  and  giveth  meat  to  her  household,  and  a  portion  to  her  maidens.  16. 
She  considereth  a  field,  and  buyeth  it :  with  the  fruit  of  her  hands  she  planteth  a 
vineyard.  17.  She  girdeth  her  loins  with  strength,  and  strengtheneth  her  arms. 
18.  Sne  perceiveth  that  her  merchandise  is  good :  her  candle  goeth  not  out  by 
nigat.  19.  She  layeth  her  hands  to  the  spindle,  and  her  hands  hold  the  distaflf. 
20.  Shs  stretcheth  out  her  hand  to  the  poor;  yea,  she  reacheth  forth  her  hands  to 
the  needy.  21.  She  is  not  afraid  of  the  snow  for  her  household :  for  all  her  house- 
hold are  clothed  with  scarlet.  22.  She  maketh  herself  coverings  of  tapestry  ;  her 
clothing  is  silk  and  purple.  23.  Her  husband  is  known  in  the  gates,  when  he 
sitteth  among  the  elders  of  the  land.  24.  She  maketh  fine  linen,  and  selleth  it ; 
and  delivereth  girdles  unto  the  merchant.  25.  Strength  and  honour  are  her 
clothing ;  and  she  shall  rejoice  in  time  to  come.  26.  She  openeth  her  mouth  with 
•wisdo.n ;  and  in  her  tongue  is  the  law  of  kindness.  27.  She  looketh  well  to  the 
ways  of  her  household,  and  eateth  not  the  bread  of  idleness.  28.  Her  children 
arise  up,  and  call  her  blessed ;  her  husband  also,  and  he  praiseth  her.  29.  Many 
daaghcers  have  done  virtuously,  but  thou  excellest  them  all.  30.  Favour  is 
deceitful,  and  beauty  is  vain :  but  a  woman  that  fcarcth  the  Lord,  she  shall  be 
praised.  31.  Give  her  of  the  fruit  of  her  hands ;  and  let  her  own  works  praise  her 
in  the  gates.— Proverbs  xxxi.  10-31. 

This  description  of  a  good  *  house-mother '  attests  the 


vs.  10-31]   PORTRAIT  OF  A  MATRON        289 

honourable  position  of  woman  in  Israel.  It  would 
have  been  impossible  in  Eastern  countries,  where  she 
was  regarded  only  as  a  plaything  and  a  better  sort  of 
slave.  The  picture  is  about  equally  far  removed  from 
old-world  and  from  modern  ideas  of  her  place.  This 
♦  virtuous  woman '  is  neither  a  doll  nor  a  graduate  nor 
a  public  character.  Her  kingdom  is  the  home.  Her 
works  '  praise  her  in  the  gates ' ;  but  it  is  her  husband, 
and  not  she,  that  *  sits '  there  among  the  elders.  There 
is  no  sentiment  or  light  of  wedded  love  in  the  picture. 
It  is  neither  the  ideal  woman  nor  wife  that  is  painted, 
but  the  ideal  head  of  a  household,  on  whose  manage- 
ment, as  much  as  on  her  husband's  work,  its  well-being 
depends. 

There  is  plenty  of  room  for  modern  ideals  by  the 
side  of  this  old  one,  but  they  are  very  incomplete 
without  it.  If  we  take  the  'oracle  which  his  mother 
taught '  King  Lemuel  to  include  this  picture,  the  artist 
is  a  woman,  and  her  motive  may  be  to  sketch  the  sort 
of  wife  her  son  should  choose.  In  any  case,  it  is 
significant  that  the  book  which  began  with  the  magni- 
ficent picture  of  Wisdom  as  a  fair  woman,  and  hung 
beside  it  the  ugly  likeness  of  Folly,  should  end  with 
this  charming  portrait.  It  is  an  acrostic,  and  the 
fetters  of  alphabetic  sequence  are  not  favourable  to 
progress  or  continuity  of  thought. 

But  I  venture  to  suggest  a  certain  advance  in  the 
representation  which  removes  the  apparent  disjointed 
character  and  needless  repetition.  There  are,  first, 
three  verses  forming  a  kind  of  prologue  or  intro- 
duction (vers.  10-12).  Then  follows  the  picture 
proper,  which  is  brought  into  unity  if  we  suppose 
that  it  describes  the  growing  material  success  of  the 
diligent  housekeeper,  beginning  with  her  own  willing 


290  THE  PROVERBS  [ch.  xxxi. 

work,  and  gradually  extending  till  she  and  her  family 
are  well  to  do  and  among  the  magnates  of  her  town 
(vers.  13-29).  Then  follow  two  verses  of  epilogue  or 
conclusion  (vers.  30,  31). 

The  rendering  *  virtuous '  is  unsatisfactory ;  for  what 
is  meant  is  not  moral  excellence,  either  in  the  wider 
sense  or  in  the  narrower  to  which,  in  reference  to 
woman,  that  great  word  has  been  unfortunately 
narrowed.  Our  colloquialism  'a  woman  of  faculty' 
would  fairly  convey  the  idea,  which  is  that  of  ability 
and  general  capacity.  We  have  said  that  there  was 
no  light  of  wedded  love  in  the  picture.  That  is  true 
of  the  main  body  of  it;  but  no  deeper,  terser  ex- 
pression of  the  inmost  blessedness  of  happy  marriage 
was  ever  spoken  than  in  the  quiet  words,  '  The  heart 
of  her  husband  trusteth  in  her,'  with  the  repose  of 
satisfaction,  with  the  tranquillity  of  perfect  assurance. 
The  bond  uniting  husband  and  wife  in  a  true  marriage 
is  not  unlike  that  uniting  us  with  God.  Happy  are 
they  who  by  their  trust  in  one  another  and  the 
peaceful  joys  which  it  brings  are  led  to  united  trust 
in  a  yet  deeper  love,  mirrored  to  them  in  their  own ! 
True,  the  picture  here  is  mainly  that  of  confidence 
that  the  wife  is  no  squanderer  of  her  husband's  goods, 
but  the  sweet  thought  goes  far  beyond  the  immediate 
application.  So  with  the  other  general  feature  in 
verse  12.  A  true  wife  is  a  fountain  of  good,  and  good 
only,  all  the  days  of  her  life — ay,  and  beyond  them 
too,  when  her  remembrance  shines  like  the  calm  west 
after  a  cloudless  sunset.  This  being,  as  it  were,  the 
overture,  next  follows  the  main  body  of  the  piece. 

It  starts  with  a  description  of  diligence  in  a  com- 
paratively humble  sphere.  Note  that  in  verse  13  the 
woman  is  working  alone.    She  toils  'willingly,'  or,  as 


vs.  10-31]    PORTRAIT  OF  A  MATRON        291 

the  literal  rendering  is,  'with  the  pleasure  of  her 
hands.'  There  is  no  profit  in  unwilling  work.  Love 
makes  toil  delightful,  and  delighted  toil  is  successful. 
Throughout  its  pages  the  Bible  reverences  diligence. 
It  is  the  condition  of  prosperity  in  material  and 
spiritual  things.  Vainly  do  men  and  women  try  to 
dodge  the  law  which  makes  the  'sweat  of  the  brow' 
the  indispensable  requisite  for  '  eating  bread.'  When 
commerce  becomes  speculation,  which  is  the  polite 
name  for  gambling,  which,  again,  is  a  synonym  for 
stealing,  it  may  yield  much  more  dainty  fare  than 
bread  to  some  for  a  time,  but  is  sure  to  bring  want 
sooner  or  later  to  individuals  and  communities.  The 
foundation  of  this  good  woman's  fortune  was  that 
she  worked  with  a  will.  There  is  no  other  founda- 
tion, either  for  fortune  or  any  other  good,  or  for  self- 
respect,  or  for  progress  in  knowledge  or  goodness  or 
religion. 

Then  her  horizon  widened,  and  she  saw  a  way  of  in- 
creasing her  store.  '  She  is  like  the  merchants'  ships ; 
she  bringeth  her  food  from  afar.'  She  looks  afield,  and 
sees  opportunities  for  profitable  exchange.  Promptly 
she  avails  herself  of  these,  and  is  at  work  while  it  is 
yet  dark.  She  has  a  household  now,  and  does  not 
neglect  their  comfort,  any  more  than  she  does  their 
employment.  Their  food  and  their  tasks  are  both  set 
them  in  the  early  morning,  and  their  mistress  is  up 
as  soon  as  they.  Her  toil  brings  in  wealth,  and  so 
verse  16  shows  another  step  in  advance.  '  She  con- 
sidereth  a  field,  and  buyeth  it,'  and  has  made  money 
enough  to  stock  it  with  vines,  and  so  add  a  new 
source  of  revenue,  and  acquire  a  new  position  as  own- 
ing land. 

But  prosperity  does  not  make  her  relax  her  efforts 


292  THE  PROVERBS  [ch.xxxi. 

so  we  are  told  again  in  verses  17-19  of  her  abridging 
the  hours  of  sleep,  and  toiling  with  wool  and  flax, 
which  would  be  useless  tautology  if  there  were  not 
some  new  circumstances  to  account  for  the  repetition. 
Encouraged  by  success,  she  'girdeth  her  loins  with 
strength,'  and,  since  she  sees  that  '  her  merchandise  is 
profitable,'  she  is  the  more  induced  to  labour.  She 
still  works  with  her  own  hands  (ver.  19).  But  the 
hands  that  are  busy  with  distaff  and  spindle  are  also 
stretched  out  with  alms  in  the  open  palm,  and  are 
extended  in  readiness  to  help  the  needy.  A  woman 
made  unfeeling  by  wealth  is  a  monster.  Prosperity 
often  leads  men  to  niggardliness  in  charitable  gifts ; 
but  if  it  does  the  same  for  a  woman,  it  is  doubly 
cursed.  Pity  and  charity  have  their  home  in  women's 
hearts.  If  they  are  so  busy  holding  the  distaff  or  the 
pen  that  they  become  hard  and  insensible  to  the  cry  of 
misery,  they  have  lost  their  glory. 

Then  follow  a  series  of  verses  describing  how  in- 
creased wealth  brings  good  to  her  household  and  her- 
self. The  advantages  are  of  a  purely  material  sort. 
Her  children  are  '  clothed  with  scarlet,'  which  was  not 
only  the  name  of  the  dye,  but  of  the  stuff.  Evidently 
thick  material  only  was  dyed  of  that  hue,  and  so 
was  fit  for  winter  clothing,  even  if  the  weather  was 
so  severe  for  Palestine  that  snow  fell.  Her  house 
was  furnished  with  'carpets,'  or  rather  'cushions'  or 
*  pillows,'  which  are  more  important  pieces  of  furniture 
where  people  recline  on  divans  than  where  they  sit  on 
chairs.  Her  own  costume  is  that  of  a  rich  woman. 
'  Purple  and  fine  linen '  are  tokens  of  wealth,  and  she 
is  woman  enough  to  like  to  wear  these.  There  is 
nothing  unbecoming  in  assuming  the  style  of  living 
appropriate  to  one's  position.    Her  children  and  her- 


vs.  10-31]    PORTRAIT  OF  A  MATRON        29;. 

self  thus  share  in  the  advantages  of  her  industry ;  and 
the  husband,  who  does  not  appear  to  have  much  busi- 
ness of  his  own,  gets  his  share  in  that  he  sits  among 
the  wealthy  and  honoured  inhabitants  of  the  town, '  in 
the  gates,'  the  chief  place  of  meeting  for  business  and 
gossip. 

Verse  24  recurs  to  the  subject  of  the  woman's 
diligence.  She  has  got  into  a  'shipping  business,' 
making  for  the  export  trade  with  the  'merchants'— 
literally,  *  Canaanites '  or  Phcenicians,  the  great  traders 
of  the  East,  from  whom,  no  doubt,  she  got  the  *  purple ' 
of  her  clothing  in  exchange  for  her  manufacture.  But 
she  had  a  better  dress  than  any  woven  in  looms  or 
bought  with  goods.  '  Strength  and  dignity '  clothe  her. 
'  She  laugheth  at  the  time  to  come ' ;  that  is,  she  is  able 
to  look  forward  without  dread  of  poverty,  because 
she  has  realised  a  competent  sum.  Such  looking  for- 
ward may  be  like  that  of  the  rich  man  in  the  parable, 
a  piece  of  presumption,  but  it  may  also  be  compatible 
with  devout  recognition  of  God's  providence.  As  in 
verse  20,  beneficence  was  coupled  with  diligence,  so  in 
verse  26  gentler  qualities  are  blended  with  strength 
and  dignity,  and  calm  anticipation  of  the  future. 

A  glimpse  into  'the  very  pulse'  of  the  woman's 
nature  is  given.  A  true  woman's  strength  is  always 
gentle,  and  her  dignity  attractive  and  gracious.  Pro- 
sperity has  not  turned  her  head.  'Wisdom,'  the 
heaven-descended  virgin,  the  deep  music  of  whose  call 
we  heard  sounding  in  the  earlier  chapters  of  Proverbs, 
dwells  with  this  very  practical  woman.  The  colloca- 
tion points  the  lesson  that  heavenly  Wisdom  has  a 
field  for  its  display  in  the  common  duties  of  a  busy 
life,  does  not  dwell  in  hermitages,  or  cloisters,  or 
studies,  but  may  guide  and  inspire  a  careful  house- 


294  THE  PROVERBS  [ch.  xxxi. 

keeper  in  her  task  of  wisely  keeping  her  husband's 
goods  together.  The  old  legend  of  the  descending 
deity  who  took  service  as  a  goat-herd,  is  true  of  the 
heavenly  Wisdom,  which  will  come  and  live  in  kitchens 
and  shops. 

But  the  ideal  woman  has  not  only  wisdom  in  act 
and  word,  but  '  the  law  of  kindness  is  on  her  tongue.' 
Prosperity  should  not  rob  her  of  her  gracious  de- 
meanour. Her  words  should  be  glowing  with  the 
calm  flame  of  love  which  stoops  to  lowly  and  un- 
deserving objects.  If  wealth  leads  to  presumptuous 
reckoning  on  the  future,  and  because  we  have  *  much 
goods  laid  up  for  many  years,'  we  see  no  other  use  of 
leisure  than  to  eat  and  drink  and  be  merry,  we  fatally 
mistake  our  happiness  and  our  duty.  But  if  gentle 
compassion  and  helpfulness  are  on  our  lips  and  in  our 
hearts  and  deeds,  prosperity  will  be  blessed. 

Nor  does  this  ideal  woman  relax  in  her  diligence, 
though  she  has  prospered.  Verse  27  seems  very  need- 
less repetition  of  what  has  been  abundantly  said 
already,  unless  we  suppose,  as  before,  new  circum- 
stances to  account  for  the  reintroduction  of  a  former 
characteristic.  These  are,  as  it  seems  to  me,  the  in- 
creased wealth  of  the  heroine,  which  might  have  led 
her  to  relax  her  watchfulness.  Some  slacking  off 
might  have  been  expected  and  excused;  but  at  the 
end,  as  at  the  beginning,  she  looks  after  her  house- 
hold and  is  herself  diligent.  The  picture  refers  only 
to  outw^ard  things.  But  we  may  remember  that  the 
same  law  applies  to  all,  and  that  any  good,  either  of 
worldly  wealth  or  of  intellectual,  moral,  or  religious 
kind,  is  only  preserved  by  the  continuous  exercise  of 
the  same  energies  which  won  it  at  first. 

Verses  28  and  29  give  the  eulogium  pronounced  by 


vs.  10-31]    PORTRAIT  OF  A  MATRON        295 

children  and  husband.  The  former  'rise  up'  as  in 
reverence;  the  latter  declares  her  superiority  to  all 
women,  with  the  hyperbolical  language  natural  to 
love.  Happy  the  man  who,  after  long  years  of  wedded 
life,  can  repeat  the  estimate  of  his  early  love  with  the 
calm  certitude  born  of  experience  I 

The  epilogue  in  verses  30  and  31  is  not  the  continua- 
tion of  the  husband's  speech.  It  at  once  points  the 
lesson  from  the  whole  picture  for  King  Lemuel,  and 
unveils  the  root  of  the  excellences  described.  Beauty 
is  skin  deep.  Let  young  men  look  deeper  than  a  fair 
face.  Let  young  women  seek  for  that  beauty  which 
does  not  fade.  The  fear  of  the  Lord  lies  at  the  bottom 
of  all  goodness  that  will  last  through  the  tear  and 
wear  of  wedded  life,  and  of  all  domestic  diligence 
which  is  not  mere  sordid  selfishness  or  slavish  toil. 
The  narrow  arena  of  domestic  life  affords  a  fit  theatre 
for  the  exercise  of  the  highest  gifts  and  graces ;  and 
the  woman  who  has  made  a  home  bright,  and  has  won 
and  kept  a  husband's  love  and  children's  reverence, 
may  let  who  will  grasp  at  the  more  conspicuous  prizes 
which  women  are  bo  eager  after  nowadays.  She  has 
chosen  the  better  part,  which  shall  not  be  taken  from 
her.  She  shall  receive  'of  the  fruit  of  her  hands' 
both  now  and  hereafter,  if  the  fear  of  the  Lord  has 
been  the  root  from  which  that  fruit  has  grown;  and 
'  her  works  shall  praise  her  in  the  gate,'  though  she  sits 
quietly  in  her  home.  It  is  well  when  our  deeds  are  the 
trumpeters  of  our  fame,  and  when  to  tell  them  is  to 
praise  us. 

The  whole  passage  is  the  hallowing  of  domestic  life, 
a  directory  for  wives  and  mothers,  a  beautiful  ideal 
of  how  noble  a  thing  a  busy  mother's  life  may  be,  an 
exhibition  to  young  men  of  what  they  should  seek,  and 


296  THE  PROVERBS  [ch.xxxi. 

of  young  women  of  what  they  should  aim  at.  It  were 
well  for  the  next  generation  if  the  young  women  of 
this  one  were  as  solicitous  to  make  cages  as  nets,  to 
cultivate  qualities  which  would  keep  love  in  the  home 
as  to  cultivate  attractions  which  lure  him  to  their  feet. 


ECCLESIASTES ;  or,  THE  PREACHER 
WHAT  PASSES  AND  WHAT  ABIDES 

'  One  generation  passeth  away,  and  another  generation  comet.h :  but  the  earth 
abideth  for  ever.'— Eccles.  i.  i. 

'  And  the  ■world  passeth  away,  and  the  Inst  thereof ;  but  he  that  doeth  the  will 
of  God  abideth  for  ever.'— 1  John  ii.  17. 

A  GREAT  river  may  run  through  more  than  one  king- 
dom, and  bear  more  than  one  name,  but  its  flow  is 
unbroken.  The  river  of  time  runs  continuously,  taking 
no  heed  of  dates  and  calendars.  The  importance  that 
we  attach  to  the  beginnings  or  endings  of  years  and 
centuries  is  a  sentimental  illusion,  but  even  an  illusion 
that  rouses  us  to  a  consciousness  of  the  stealthy  gliding 
of  the  river  may  do  us  good,  and  we  need  all  the  helps 
we  can  find  to  wise  retrospect  and  sober  anticipation. 
So  we  must  let  the  season  colour  our  thoughts,  even 
whilst  we  feel  that  in  yielding  to  that  impulse  we  are 
imagining  what  has  no  reality  in  the  passing  from  the 
last  day  of  one  century  to  the  first  day  of  another. 

I  do  not  mean  to  discuss  in  this  sermon  either  the 
old  century  or  the  new  in  their  wider  social  and  other 
aspects.  That  has  been  done  abundantly.  We  shall 
best  do  our  parts  in  making  the  days,  and  the  years, 
and  the  century  what  they  should  be,  if  we  let  the 
truths  that  come  from  these  combined  texts  sink  into 
and  influence  our  individual  lives.  I  have  put  them 
together,  because  they  are  so  strikingly  antithetical, 

297 


298  ECCLESIASTES  [ch.  i. 

both  true,  and  yet  looking  at  the  same  facts  from, 
opposite  points  of  view.  But  the  antithesis  is  not  really 
so  complete  as  it  sounds  at  first  hearing,  because  what 
the  Preacher  means  by  '  the  earth '  that  '  abideth  for 
ever '  is  not  quite  the  same  as  what  the  Apostle  means 
by  the  *  world '  that '  passes,'  and  the  '  generations '  that 
come  and  go  are  not  exactly  the  same  as  the  men  that 
'abide  for  ever,'  But  still  the  antithesis  is  real  and 
impressive.  The  bitter  melancholy  of  the  Preacher 
saw  but  the  surface ;  the  joyous  faith  of  the  Apostle 
went  a  great  deal  deeper,  and  putting  the  two  sets  of 
thoughts  and  ways  of  looking  at  man  and  his  dwelling- 
place  together,  we  get  lessons  that  may  well  shape  our 
individual  lives. 

So  let  me  ask  you  to  look,  in  the  first  place,  at — 
I.  The  sad  and  superficial  teaching  of  the  Preacher. 
Now  in  reading  this  Book  of  Ecclesiastes — which  I 
am  afraid  a  great  many  people  do  not  read  at  all — we 
have  always  to  remember  that  the  wild  things  and  the 
bitter  things  which  the  Preacher  is  saying  so  abun- 
dantly through  its  course  do  not  represent  his  ultimate 
convictions,  but  thoughts  that  he  took  up  in  his  progress 
from  error  to  truth.  His  first  word  is  :  *  All  is  vanity ! ' 
That  conviction  had  been  set  vibrating  in  his  heart,  as 
it  is  set  vibrating  in  the  heart  of  every  man  who  does 
as  he  did,  viz.,  seeks  for  solid  good  away  from  God. 
That  is  his  starting-point.  It  is  not  true.  All  is  not 
vanity,  except  to  some  blas^  cynic,  made  cynical  by  the 
failure  of  his  voluptuousness,  and  to  whom  '  all  things 
here  are  out  of  joint,'  and  everything  looks  yellow 
because  his  own  biliary  system  is  out  of  order.  That  is 
the  beginning  of  the  book,  and  there  are  hosts  of  other 
things  in  the  course  of  it  as  one-sided,  as  cynically 
bitter,  and  therefore  superficial.    But  the  end  of  it  is  : 


V.  4]    WHAT  PASSES :  WHAT  ABIDES    299 

•  Let  us  hear  the  conclusion  of  the  whole  matter ;  fear 
God,  and  keep  His  commandments :  for  this  is  \  he 
whole  duty  of  man.'  In  his  journey  from  the  one 
point  to  the  other  my  text  is  the  first  step,  'One 
generation  goeth,  and  another  cometh:  the  earth 
abideth  for  ever.' 

He  looks  out  upon  humanity,  and  sees  that  in  one 
aspect  the  world  is  full  of  births,  and  in  another  full  of 
deaths.  Coffins  and  cradles  seem  the  main  furniture, 
and  he  hears  the  tramp,  tramp,  tramp  of  the  genera- 
tions passing  over  a  soil  honeycombed  with  tombs,  and 
therefore  ringing  hollow  to  their  tread.  All  depends 
on  the  point  of  view.  The  strange  history  of  humanity 
is  like  a  piece  of  shot  silk ;  hold  it  at  one  angle,  and 
you  see  dark  purple,  hold  at  another,  and  you  see  bright 
golden  tints.  Look  from  one  point  of  view,  and  it 
seems  a  long  history  of  vanishing  generations.  Look  to 
the  rear  of  the  procession,  and  it  seems  a  buoyant 
spectacle  of  eager,  young  faces  pressing  forwards  on 
the  march,  and  of  strong  feet  treading  the  new  road. 
But  yet  the  total  effect  of  that  endless  procession  is  to 
impress  on  the  observer  the  transiency  of  humanity. 
And  that  wholesome  thought  is  made  more  poignant 
still  by  the  comparison  which  the  writer  here  draws 
between  the  fleeting  generations  and  the  abiding  earth. 
Man  is  the  lord  of  earth,  and  can  mould  it  to  his  pur- 
pose, but  it  remains  and  he  passes.  He  is  but  a  lodger 
in  an  old  house  that  has  had  generations  of  tenants, 
each  of  whom  has  said  for  a  while,  '  It  is  mine';  and 
they  all  have  drifted  away,  and  the  house  stands.  The 
Alps,  over  which  Hannibal  stormed,  over  which  the 
Goths  poured  down  on  the  fertile  plains  of  Lombardy, 
through  whose  passes  mediaeval  emperors  led  their 
forces,  over  whose  summits  Napoleon  brought  his  men, 


300  ECCLESIASTES  [ch.i. 

through  whose  bowels  this  generation  has  burrowed 
its  tunnels,  stand  the  same,  and  smile  the  same  amid 
their  snows,  at  the  transient  creatures  that  have 
crawled  across  them.  The  primrose  on  the  rock 
blooms  in  the  same  place  year  after  year,  and  nature 
and  it  are  faithful  to  their  covenant,  but  the  poet's  eyes 
that  fell  upon  them  are  sealed  with  dust.  Generations 
have  gone,  the  transient  flower  remains.  *  One  genera- 
tion Cometh  and  another  goeth,'  and  the  tragedy  is 
made  more  tragical  because  the  stage  stands  unaltered, 
and  '  the  earth  abides  for  ever.'  That  is  what  sense  has 
to  say — '  the  foolish  senses ' — and  that  is  all  that  sense 
has  to  say.  Is  it  all  that  can  be  said  ?  If  it  is,  then  the 
Preacher's  bitter  conclusion  is  true,  and  •  all  is  vanity 
and  chasing  after  wind.' 

He  immediately  proceeds  to  draw  from  this  undeni- 
able, but,  as  I  maintain,  partial  fact,  the  broad  con- 
clusion which  cannot  be  rebutted,  if  you  accept  what 
he  has  said  in  my  text  as  being  the  sufficient  and  com- 
plete account  of  man  and  his  dwelling-place.  If,  says 
he,  it  is  true  that  one  generation  comes  and  another 
goes,  and  the  earth  abides  for  ever,  and  if  that  is  all 
that  has  to  be  said,  then  all  things  are  full  of  labour. 
There  is  immense  activity,  and  there  is  no  progress; 
it  is  all  rotary  motion  round  and  round  and  round,  and 
the  same  objects  reappear  duly  and  punctually  as  the 
wheel  revolves,  and  life  is  futile.  Yes ;  so  it  is  unless 
there  is  something  more  to  be  said,  and  the  life  that  is 
thus  futile  is  also,  as  it  seems  to  me,  inexplicable  if  you 
believe  in  God  at  all.  If  man,  being  what  he  is,  is 
wholly  subject  to  that  law  of  mutation  and  decay,  then 
not  only  is  he  made  *  a  little  lower  than  the  angels  for 
the  suffering  of  death,'  but  he  is  also  inferior  to  that 
persistent,  old  mother-earth  from  whose  bosom  he  has 


V.4]    WHAT  PASSES:  WHAT  ABIDES     301 

come.  If  all  that  you  have  to  say  of  him  is,  '  Dust  thou 
art,  and  unto  dust  shalt  thou  return,'  then  life  is  futile, 
and  God  is  not  vindicated  for  having  produced  it. 

And  there  is  another  consequence  that  follows,  if 
this  is  all  that  we  have  got  to  say.  If  the  cynical 
wisdom  of  Ecclesiastes  is  the  ultimate  word,  then  I  do 
not  assert  that  morality  is  destroyed,  because  right  and 
wrong  are  not  dependent  either  upon  the  belief  in 
a  God,  or  on  the  belief  in  immortality.  But  I  do  say 
that  to  declare  that  the  fleeting,  transient  life  of  earth 
is  all  does  strike  a  staggering  blow  at  all  noble  ethics 
and  paralyses  a  great  deal  of  the  highest  forms  of 
human  activity,  and  that,  as  has  historically  been  the 
case,  so  on  the  large  scale,  and,  speaking  generally, 
it  will  be  the  case,  that  the  man  whose  creed  is  only 
'  To-morrow  we  die '  will  very  speedily  draw  the  con- 
clusion, *  Let  us  eat  and  drink,'  and  sensuous  delights 
and  the  lower  side  of  his  nature  will  become  dominant. 

So,  then,  the  Preacher  had  not  got  at  the  bottom  of 
all  things,  either  in  his  initial  conviction  that  all  was 
vanity,  or  in  that  which  he  laid  down  as  the  first  step 
towards  establishing  that,  that  man  passes  and  the 
earth  abides.  There  is  more  to  be  said ;  the  sad, 
superficial  teaching  of  the  Preacher  needs  to  be  supple- 
mented. 

Now  turn  for  a  moment  to  what  does  supplement  it. 

II.  The  joyous  and  profounder  teaching  of  the 
Apostle. 

The  cynic  never  sees  the  depths ;  that  is  reserved  for 
the  mystical  eye  of  the  lover.  So  John  says :  '  No,  no ; 
that  is  not  all.  Here  is  the  true  state  of  affairs  :  "  The 
world  passeth  away,  and  the  lust  thereof :  but  he  that 
doeth  the  will  of  God  abideth  for  ever." '  The  doctrine 
of  the  passing  generations  and  the  abiding  earth  is 


a02  ECCLESIASTES  [ch.i. 

fronted  squarely  in  my  second  text  by  the  not  contra- 
dictory, but  complementary  doctrine  of  the  passing 
world  and  the  abiding  men.  I  do  not  suppose  that 
John  had  this  verse  of  Ecclesiastes  in  his  mind,  for  the 
word  'abide'  is  one  of  his  favourite  expressions,  and  is 
always  cropping  up.  But  even  though  he  had  not,  we 
find  in  his  utterance  the  necessary  correction  to  the 
first  text.  As  I  have  said,  and  now  need  not  do  more 
than  repeat  in  a  sentence,  the  antithesis  is  not  so  com- 
plete as  it  seems.  John's  *  world '  is  not  the  Preacher's 
'earth,'  but  he  means  thereby,  as  we  all  know,  the 
aggregate  of  created  things,  including  men,  considered 
apart  from  God,  and  in  so  far  as  it  includes  voluntary 
agents  set  in  opposition  to  God  and  the  will  of  God. 
He  means  the  earth  rent  away  from  God,  and  turned 
to  be  what  it  was  not  meant  to  be,  a  minister  of  evil, 
and  he  means  men,  in  so  far  as  they  have  parted  them- 
selves from  God  and  make  up  an  alien,  if  not  a 
positively  antagonistic  company. 

Perhaps  he  was  referring,  in  the  words  of  our  text,  to 
the  break-up  of  the  existing  order  of  things  which  he 
discerned  as  impending  and  already  begun  to  take 
effect  in  consequence  of  the  coming  of  Jesus  Christ, 
the  shining  of  the  true  Light.  For  you  may  remember 
that  in  a  previous  part  of  the  epistle  he  uses  precisely 
the  same  expression,  with  a  significant  variation.  Here, 
in  our  text,  he  says,  '  The  world  passeth  away ' ;  there 
he  says,  'The  darkness  has  passed  and  the  true  light 
now  shineth.'  He  sees  a  process  installed  and  going  on, 
in  which  the  whole  solid-seeming  fabric  of  a  godless 
society  is  being  dissolved  and  melted  away.  And  says 
he,  in  the  midst  of  all  this  change  there  is  one  who 
stands  unchanged,  the  man  that  does  God's  will. 

But  just  for  a  moment  we  may  take  the  lower  point 


V.  4]    WHAT  PASSES  :  WHAT  ABIDES    303 

of  view,  and  see  here  a  flat  contradiction  of  the 
Preacher.  He  said,  '  Men  go,  and  the  world  abides.' 
*No,'  says  John;  'your  own  psalmists  might  have 
taught  you  better :  "  As  a  vesture  shalt  Thou  change 
them,  and  they  shall  be  changed."'  The  world,  the 
earth,  which  seems  so  solid  and  permanent,  is  all  the 
while  in  perpetual  flux,  as  our  later  science  has  taught 
us,  in  a  sense  of  which  neither  Preacher  nor  Apostle 
could  dream.  For  just  as  from  the  beginning  forces 
were  at  work  which  out  of  the  fire-mist  shaped  sun 
and  planets,  so  the  same  forces,  continuing  in  opera- 
tion, are  tending  towards  the  end  of  the  system  which 
they  began ;  and  a  contracting  sun  and  a  diminished 
light  and  a  lowered  temperature  and  the  narrower 
orbits  in  which  the  planets  shall  revolve,  prophesy 
that '  the  elements  shall  melt  with  fervent  heat,'  and 
that  all  things  which  have  been  made  m.ust  one  day 
cease  to  be.  Nature  is  the  true  Penelope's  web,  ever 
being  woven  and  ever  being  unravelled,  and  in  the 
most  purely  physical  and  scientific  sense  the  world  is 
passing  away.  But  then,  because  you  and  I  belong,  in 
a  segment  of  our  being,  to  that  which  thus  is  passing 
away,  we  come  under  the  same  laws,  and  all  that  has 
been  born  must  die.  So  the  generations  come,  and  in 
their  very  coming  bear  the  prophecy  of  their  going. 
But,  on  the  other  hand,  there  is  an  inner  nucleus  of  our 
being,  of  which  the  material  is  but  the  transient 
envelope  and  periphery,  which  holds  nought  of  the 
material,  but  of  the  spiritual,  and  that  'abides  for 
ever.' 

But  let  us  lift  the  thought  rather  into  the  region  of 
the  true  antithesis  which  John  was  contemplating, 
which  is  not  so  much  the  crumbling  away  of  the 
material,  and  the  endurance  of  the  spiritual,  as  the 


304  ECCLESIASTES  [ch.i. 

essential  transiency  of  everything  that  is  antagonism 
to  the  will  of  God,  and  the  essential  eternity  of  every- 
thing which  is  in  conformity  with  that  will.  And  so, 
says  he,  '  The  world  is  passing,  and  the  lust  thereof.' 
The  desires  that  grasp  it  perish  with  it,  or  perhaps, 
more  truly  still,  the  object  of  the  desire  perishes,  and 
with  it  the  possibility  of  their  gratification  ceases,  but 
the  desire  itself  remains.  But  what  of  the  man  whose 
life  has  been  devoted  to  the  things  seen  and  temporal, 
when  he  finds  himself  in  a  condition  of  being  where 
none  of  these  have  accompanied  him?  Nothing  to 
slake  his  lusts,  if  he  be  a  sensualist.  No  money-bags, 
ledgers,  or  cheque-books  if  he  be  a  plutocrat  or  a 
capitalist  or  a  miser.  No  books  or  dictionaries  if  he  be 
a  mere  student.  Nothing  of  his  vocations  if  he  lived 
for  '  the  world.'  But  yet  the  appetite  is  abiding.  Will 
that  not  be  a  thirst  that  cannot  be  slaked  ? 

'  The  world  is  passing  and  the  lust  thereof,'  and  all 
that  is  antagonistic  to  God,  or  separated  from  Him,  is 
essentially  as  'a  vapour  that  appeareth  for  a  little 
time,  and  then  vanishes  away,'  whereas  the  man  who 
does  the  will  of  God  abideth  for  ever,  in  that  he  is 
steadfast  in  the  midst  of  change. 

'  His  hand  the  good  man  fastens  on  the  skies, 
And  lets  earth  roll,  nor  heeds  its  idle  whirl.' 

He  shall  '  abide  for  ever,'  in  the  sense  that  his  work  is 
perpetual.  In  one  very  deep  and  solemn  sense,  nothing 
human  ever  dies,  but  in  another  all  that  is  not  running 
in  the  same  direction  as,  and  borne  along  by  the 
impulse  of,  the  will  of  God,  is  destined  to  be  neutralised 
and  brought  to  nothing  at  last.  There  may  be  a  row  of 
figures  as  long  as  to  reach  from  here  to  the  fixed  stars, 
but  if  there  is  not  in  front  of  them  the  significant  digit, 


V.4]    WHAT  PASSES:  WHAT  ABIDES    305 

which  cornea  from  obedience  to  the  will  of  God,  all  is 
but  a  string  of  ciphers,  and  their  net  result  is  nothing. 
And  he  '  abideth  for  ever,'  in  the  most  blessed  and  pro- 
found sense,  in  that  through  his  faith,  which  has  kindled 
his  love,  and  his  love  which  has  set  in  motion  his 
practical  obedience,  he  becomes  participant  of  the  very 
eternity  of  the  living  God.  'This  is  eternal  life,*  not 
merely  to  know,  but  '  to  do  the  will '  of  our  Father. 
Nothing  else  will  last,  and  nothing  else  will  prosper, 
any  more  than  a  bit  of  driftwood  can  stem  Niagara. 
Unite  yourself  with  the  will  of  God,  and  you  abide. 

And  now  let  me,  as  briefly  as  I  can,  throw  together — 

III.  The  plain,  practical  lessons  that  come  from  both 
these  texts. 

May  I  say,  without  seeming  to  be  morbid  or  un- 
practical, one  lesson  is  that  we  should  cultivate  a  sense 
of  the  transiency  of  this  outward  life?  One  of  our  old 
authors  says  somewhere,  that  it  is  wholesome  to  smell 
at  a  piece  of  turf  from  a  churchyard.  I  know  that 
much  harm  has  been  done  by  representing  Christianity 
as  mainly  a  scheme  which  is  to  secure  man  a  peaceful 
death,  and  that  many  morbid  forms  of  piety  have  given 
far  too  large  a  place  to  the  contemplation  of  skulls  and 
cross-bones.  But  for  all  that,  the  remembrance  of 
death  present  in  our  lives  will  often  lay  a  cool  hand 
upon  a  throbbing  brow ;  and,  like  a  bit  of  ice  used  by  a 
skilful  physician,  will  bring  down  the  temperature,  and 
stay  the  too  tumultuous  beating  of  the  heart.  'So 
teach  us  to  number  our  days  that  we  may  apply  our 
hearts  to  wisdom.'  It  will  minister  energy,  and  lead  us 
to  say,  like  our  Lord,  '  We  must  work  the  works  of  Him 
that  sent  Me  while  it  is  day ;  the  night  cometh.' 

Let  me  say  again — a  very  plain,  practical  lesson  is  to 
dig  deep  down  for  our  foundations  below  the  rubbish 

u 


306  ECCLESIASTES  [ch.i. 

that  has  accumulated.  If  a  man  wishes  to  build  a 
house  in  Rome  or  in  Jerusalem  he  has  to  go  fifty  or 
sixty  feet  down,  through  potsherds  and  broken  tiles 
and  triturated  marbles,  and  the  dust  of  ancient  palaces 
and  temples.  We  have  to  drive  a  shaft  clear  down 
through  all  the  superficial  strata,  and  to  lay  the  first 
stones  on  the  Rock  of  Ages.  Do  not  build  on  that 
which  quivers  and  shakes  beneath  you.  Do  not  try  to 
make  your  life's  path  across  the  weeds,  or  as  they  call 
it  in  Egypt,  the  '  sudd,'  that  floats  on  the  surface  of  the 
Nile,  compacted  for  many  a  mile,  and  yet  only  a  film 
on  the  surface  of  the  river,  to  be  swept  away  some  day. 
Build  on  God. 

And  the  last  lesson  is,  let  us  see  to  it  that  our  wills 
are  in  harmony  with  His,  and  the  work  of  our  hands 
His  work.  We  can  do  that  will  in  all  the  secularities  of 
our  daily  life.  The  difference  between  the  work  that 
shrivels  up  and  disappears  and  the  work  that  abides 
is  not  so  much  in  its  external  character,  or  in  the 
materials  on  which  it  is  expended,  as  in  the  motive 
from  which  it  comes.  So  that,  if  I  might  so  say,  if  two 
women  are  sitting  at  the  same  millstone  face  to  face, 
and  turning  round  the  same  handle,  one  of  them  for 
one  half  the  circumference,  and  the  other  for  the  other, 
and  grinding  out  the  same  corn,  the  one's  work  may  be 
'  gold,  silver,  precious  stones,'  which  shall  abide  the 
trying  fire  ;  and  the  other's  may  be  '  wood,  hay,  stubble,' 
which  shall  be  burnt  up.  'He  that  doeth  the  will  of 
God  abideth  for  ever.' 

So  let  us  set  ourselves,  dear  friends !  to  our  several 
tasks  for  this  coming  year.  Never  mind  about  the 
century,  it  will  take  care  of  itself.  Do  your  little  work 
in  your  little  corner,  and  be  sure  of  this,  that  amidst 
changes  you  will  stand  unchanged,  amidst  tumults  you 


V.4]      THE  PAST  AND  THE  FUTURE    307 

may  stand  calm,  in  death  you  will  be  entering  on  a 
fuller  life,  and  that  what  to  others  is  the  end  will  be 
to  you  the  beginning.  'If  any  man's  work  abide,  he 
shall  receive  a  reward,'  and  he  himself  shall  abide  with 
the  abiding  God. 

The  bitter  cynic  said  half  the  truth  when  he  said, 
*  One  generation  goeth,  and  another  cometh ;  but  the 
earth  abides.'  The  mystic  Apostle  saw  the  truth 
steadily,  and  saw  it  whole  when  he  said,  *  Lo !  the  world 
passeth  away,  and  the  lust  thereof ;  but  he  that  doeth 
the  will  of  God  abideth  for  ever.' 


THE  PAST  AND  THE  FUTURE 

•The  thing  that  hath  been,  It  is  that  -which  shall  be ;  and  that  which  Is  done  is 
that  which  shall  be  done :  and  there  is  no  new  thing  under  the  sun.'— Ecclks.  1.  9. 

'That  he  no  longer  should  live  the  rest  of  his  time  in  the  flesh  to  the  lusts  of 
men,  but  to  the  will  of  God.  3.  For  the  time  past  of  our  life  may  suffice  us  to 
have  wrought  the  will  of  the  Gentiles.'— 1  Peter  iv.  2,  3. 

If  you  will  look  at  these  two  passages  carefully  you 
will,  I  think,  see  that  they  imply  two  different,  and  in 
some  respects  contradictory,  thoughts  about  the  future 
in  its  relation  to  the  past.  The  first  of  them  is  the 
somewhat  exaggerated  utterance  of  a  dreary  and 
depressing  philosophy,  which  tells  us  that,  as  in  the 
outer  world,  so  in  regard  to  man's  life,  there  is  an 
enormous  activity  and  no  advance,  that  it  is  all  moving 
round  like  the  scenes  in  some  circular  panorama,  that 
after  it  has  gone  the  round  back  it  comes  again,  that  it 
is  the  same  thing  over  and  over  again,  that  life  is  a 
treadmill,  so  to  speak,  with  an  immense  deal  of  working 
of  muscles ;  but  it  all  comes  to  nothing  over  again.  '  The 
rivers  run  into  the  sea  and  the  sea  is  not  full,  and  where 
the  rivers  come  from  they  go  back  to;  and  the  wind 
goes  to  the  south,  turns  to  the  north,  and  whirls  about 


308  ECCLESIASTES  [ch.  i. 

continually.  Everything  is  full  of  labour,  and  it  has 
all  been  done  before,  and  there  is  nothing  fresh  ;  every- 
thing is  flat,  stale,  and  unprofitable.' 

Well  that  is  not  true  altogether,  but  though  it  be  not 
true  altogether — though  it  be  an  exaggeration,  and 
though  the  inference  that  is  built  upon  it  is  not 
altogether  satisfactory  and  profound — yet  the  thought 
itself  is  one  that  has  a  great  deal  in  it  that  is  true  and 
important,  and  may  be  very  helpful  and  profitable  to 
us  now;  for  there  is  a  religious  way,  as  well  as 
an  irreligious  way,  of  saying  there  is  nothing  new 
under  the  sun.  It  may  be  the  utterance  of  a  material, 
hlasi,  unprofitable,  spurious  philosophy,  or  it  may  be 
the  utterance  of  the  profoundest,  and  the  happiest,  and 
the  most  peaceful  religious  trust  and  confidence. 

The  other  passage  implies  the  opposite  notion  of 
man's  life,  that  however  much  in  my  future  may  be  just 
the  same  as  what  my  past  has  been,  there  is  a  region 
in  which  it  is  quite  possible  to  make  to-morrow  unlike 
to-day,  and  so  to  resolve  and  so  to  work  as  that '  the 
time  past  of  our  lives '  may  be  diflterent  from  '  the  rest 
of  our  time  in  the  flesh ' ;  that  a  great  revolution  may 
come  upon  a  man,  and  that  whilst  the  outward  life  is 
continuous  and  the  same,  and  the  tasks  to  be  done  are 
the  same,  and  the  joys  the  same,  there  may  be  such 
a  profound  and  radical  difference  in  the  spirit  and 
motive  in  which  they  are  done  as  that  the  thing  that 
has  been  is  not  that  which  shall  be,  and  for  us  there 
may  be  a  new  thing  under  the  sun. 

And  so  just  now  I  think  we  may  take  these  two 
passages  in  their  connection — their  opposition,  and  in 
their  parallelism— as  suggesting  to  us  two  very  helpful, 
mutually  completing  thoughts  about  the  unknown 
future  that  stretches  before  us — first,  the  substantial 


V.9]     THE  PAST  AND  THE  FUTURE      309 

identity  of  the    future   with    the    past ;    second,   the 
possible  total  unlikeness  of  the  future  and  the  past. 

First  then,  let  us  try  to  get  the  impress  from  the 
first  phrase  of  that  conviction,  so  far  as  it  is  true,  as  to 
the  sameness  of  the  things  that  are  going  to  be  with 
the  things  that  have  been.  The  immediate  connection 
in  which  the  words  are  spoken  is  in  regard,  mainly,  to 
the  outer  world,  the  physical  universe,  and  only 
secondarily  and  subordinately  in  regard  to  man's  life. 
And  I  need  not  remind  you  how  that  thought  of  the 
absolute  sameness  and  continuous  repetition  of  the 
past  and  the  future  has  gained  by  the  advance  of 
physical  science  in  modern  times.  It  seems  to  be 
contradicted  no  doubt  by  the  continual  emergence  of 
new  things  here  and  there,  but  they  tell  us  that  the 
novelty  is  only  a  matter  of  arrangement,  that  the 
atoms  have  never  had  an  addition  to  them  since  the 
beginning  of  things,  that  all  stand  just  as  they  were 
from  the  very  commencement  and  foundation  of  all 
things,  and  that  all  that  seems  new  is  only  a  new 
arrangement,  so  that  the  thing  which  has  been  is  that 
which  shall  be.  And  then  there  comes  up  the  other 
thought,  upon  which  I  need  not  dwell  for  a  moment, 
that  the  present  condition  of  things  round  about  us  is 
the  result  of  the  uniform  forces  that  have  been  working 
straight  on  from  the  very  beginning.  And  yet,  whilst 
all  that  is  quite  true,  we  come  to  our  own  human  lives, 
and  we  find  there  the  true  application  of  such  words  as 
these :  to-morrow  is  to  be  like  yesterday.  There  is  one 
very  important  sense  in  which  the  opposite  of  that  is 
true,  and  no  to-morrow  can  ever  be  like  any  yesterday 
for  however  much  the  events  may  be  the  same,  we  are 
so  different  that,  in  regard  even  to  the  most  well 
trodden  and  beaten  of  our  paths  of  daily  life,  we  may 


310  ECCLESIASTES  [ch.l 

all  say,  'We  have  not  passed  this  way  before!'  We 
cannot  bring  back  that  which  is  gone— that  which  is 
gone  is  gone  for  good  or  evil,  irrevocable  as  the  snow 
or  the  perfume  of  last  year's  flowers.  I  dare  say  there 
are  many  here  before  me  who  are  saying  to  them- 
selves, '  No !  life  can  never  again  be  what  life  has  been 
for  me,  and  the  only  thing  that  I  am  quite  sure  about 
in  regard  to  to-morrow  is  that  it  is  utterly  impossible 
that  it  should  ever  be  as  yesterday  was  ! '  Notwith- 
standing, the  word  of  my  text  is  a  true  word,  the  thing 
that  hath  been  is  that  which  shall  be.  I  need  not  dwell 
on  the  grounds  upon  which  the  certainty  rests,  such, 
for  instance,  as  that  the  powers  which  shape  to-morrow 
are  the  same  as  the  powers  which  shaped  yesterday; 
that  you  and  I,  in  our  nature,  are  the  same,  and  that 
the  mighty  Hand  up  there  that  is  moulding  it  is  the 
same ;  that  every  to-morrow  is  the  child  of  all  the  yes- 
terdays ;  that  the  same  general  impression  will  pervade 
the  future  as  has  pervaded  the  past.  Though  events 
may  be  dijfferent  the  general  stamp  and  characteristics 
of  them  will  be  the  same,  and  when  we  pass  into  a  new 
region  of  human  life  we  shall  find  that  we  are  not 
walking  in  a  place  where  no  footprints  have  been 
before  us,  but  that  all  about  us  the  ground  is  trodden 
down  smooth. 

'  That  which  hath  been  is  that  which  shall  be.'  Thus, 
while  this  is  proximately  true  in  regard  to  the  future, 
let  me  just  for  a  moment  or  two  give  you  one  or  two  of 
the  plain,  simple  pieces  of  well-worn  wisdom  which  are 
built  upon  such  a  thought.  And  first  of  all  let  me  give 
you  this,  'Well,  then,  let  us  learn  to  tone  down  our 
expectations  of  what  may  be  coming  to  us.'  Especially 
I  speak  now  to  the  younger  portion  of  my  congregation, 
to  whom  life  is  beginning,  and  to  whom  it  is  naturally 


V.9]     THE  PAST  AND  THE  FUTURE     311 

tinted  with  roseate  hue,  and  who  have  a  great  deal 
stretching  before  them  which  is  new  to  them,  new 
duties,  new  relationships,  new  joys.  But  whilst  that  is 
specially  true  for  them  it  is  true  for  all.  It  is  a  strange 
illusion  under  which  we  all  live  to  the  very  end  of  our 
lives,  unless  by  reflection  and  effort  we  become  masters 
of  it  and  see  things  in  the  plain  daylight  of  common 
sense,  that  the  future  is  going  somehow  or  other  to  be 
brighter,  better,  fuller  of  resources,  fuller  of  blessings, 
freer  from  sorrow  than  the  past  has  been.  We  turn 
over  each  new  leaf  that  marks  a  new  year,  and  we 
cannot  help  thinking :  '  Well !  perhaps  hidden  away  in 
its  storehouses  there  may  be  something  brighter  and 
better  in  store  for  me.'  It  is  well,  perhaps,  that  we 
should  have  that  thought,  for  if  we  were  not  so  drawn 
on,  even  though  it  be  by  an  illusion,  I  do  not  know  that 
we  should  be  able  to  live  on  as  we  do.  But  don't  let  us 
forget  in  the  hours  of  quiet  that  there  is  no  reason  at 
all  to  expect  that  any  of  these  arbitrary,  and  conven- 
tional, and  unreal  distinctions  of  calendars  and  dates 
make  any  difference  in  that  uniform  strand  of  our  life 
which  just  runs  the  same,  which  is  reeled  off  the  great 
drum  of  the  future  and  on  to  the  great  drum  of  the 
past,  and  that  is  all  spun  out  of  one  fibre  and  is  one 
gauge,  and  one  sort  of  stuff  from  the  beginning  to  the 
end.  And  so  let  us  be  contented  where  we  are,  and  not 
fancy  that  when  I  get  that  thing  that  I  am  looking 
forward  to,  when  I  get  into  that  position  I  am  waiting 
for,  things  will  be  much  different  from  what  they  are 
to-day.  Life  is  all  one  piece,  the  future  and  the  past, 
the  pattern  runs  right  through  from  the  beginning  to 
the  end,  and  the  stuff  is  the  same  stuff.  So  don't  you 
be  too  enthusiastic,  you  people  who  have  an  eager 
ambition  for  social  and  political  advancement.    Things 


312  ECCLESIASTES  [cai. 

will  be  very  much  as  they  are  used  to  be,  with  perhaps 
some  slow,  gradual,  infinitesimal  approximation  to  a 
higher  ideal  and  a  nobler  standard ;  but  there  will  be 
no  jump,  no  breaks,  no  spasmodic  advance.  We  must 
be  contented  to  accept  the  law,  that  there  is  no  new 
thing  under  the  sun.  As  you  would  lay  a  piece  of 
healing  ice  upon  the  heated  forehead,  lay  that  law  upon 
the  feverish  anticipations  some  of  you  have  in  regard 
to  the  future,  and  let  the  heart  beat  more  quietly,  and 
with  the  more  contentment  for  the  recognition  of  that 
law. 

And  then  I  may  say,  at  the  same  time,  though  I 
won't  dwell  upon  it  for  more  than  a  moment,  let  us 
take  the  same  thought  to  teach  us  to  moderate  our 
fears.  Don't  be  afraid  that  anything  whatever  may 
come  that  will  destroy  the  substantial  likeness  between 
the  past  and  the  future ;  and  so  leave  all  those  jarring 
and  terrifying  thoughts  that  mingle  with  all  our 
anticipations  of  the  time  to  come,  leave  them  very 
quietly  on  one  side  and  say,  •  Thou  hast  been  my  Help, 
leave  me  not,  neither  forsake  me,  O  God  of  my  salva- 
tion.' 

And  then  there  are  one  or  two  other  points  I  mean 
to  touch  upon,  and  let  me  just  name  them.  Do  not  let 
us  so  exaggerate  that  thought  of  the  substantial  same- 
ness of  the  future  and  the  past  as  to  flatten  life  and 
make  it  dreary  and  profitless  and  insignificant.  Let  us 
rather  feel,  as  I  shall  have  to  say  presently,  that  whilst 
the  framework  remains  the  same,  whilst  the  general 
characteristics  will  not  be  much  different,  there  is  room 
within  that  uniformity  for  all  possible  play  of  variety 
and  interest,  and  earnestness  and  enthusiasm,  and  hope. 
They  make  the  worst  possible  use  of  this  fixity  and 
steadfastness  of  things  who  say,  as  the  dreary  man  at 


V.9]     THE  PAST  AND  THE  FUTURE     313 

the  beginning  of  the  Book  of  Ecclesiastes  is  represented 
as  saying,  that  because  things  are  the  same  as  they  will 
and  have  been,  all  is  vanity.  It  is  not  true.  Don't  let 
the  uniformity  of  life  flatten  your  interest  in  the  great 
miracle  of  every  fresh  day,  with  its  fresh  continuation 
of  ancient  blessings  and  the  steadfast  mercies  of  our 
Lord. 

And  let  us  hold  firmly  to  the  far  deeper  truth  that 
the  future  will  be  the  same  as  the  past,  because  God  is 
the  same.  God's  yesterday  is  God's  to-morrow — the 
same  love,  the  same  resources,  the  same  wisdom,  the 
same  power,  the  same  sustaining  Hand,  the  same 
encompassing  Presence.  *  A  thousand  years  are  as  one 
day,  and  one  day  as  a  thousand  years ' ;  and  when  we 
say  there  is  no  new  thing  under  the  sun  let  us  feel  that 
the  deepest  way  of  expressing  that  thought  is,  '  Thou 
art  the  same,  and  Thy  steadfast  purposes  know  no 
alteration.' 

Turn  to  the  other  side  of  the  thought  suggested  by 
the  second  passage  of  the  text.  It  speaks  to  us,  as  I 
have  said,  of  the  possible  entire  unlikeness  between 
the  future  and  the  past.  To-morrow  is  the  child  of 
yesterday — granted  ;  *  whatsoever  a  man  soweth,  that 
shall  he  reap' — certainly;  there  is  a  persistent  uniformity 
of  nature,  and  the  same  causes  working  make  the 
future  much  of  the  same  general  structure  as  all  the 
past  has  been — be  it  so;  and  yet  within  the  limits  of 
that  identity  there  may  be  breathed  into  the  self- 
sameness  of  to-morrow^  such  an  entire  difference  of 
disposition,  temper,  motive,  direction  of  life,  that  my 
whole  life  may  be  revolutionised,  my  whole  being,  I 
was  going  to  say,  cleft  in  twain,  my  old  life  buried  and 
forgotten,  and  a  new  life  may  emerge  from  chaos  and 
from  the  dead.      Of  course,  the  question,  Is  such  an 


314  ECCLESIASTES  [ch.i. 

alteration  possible  ?  rises  up  very  solemnly  to  men,  to 
most  of  them,  for  I  suppose  we  all  of  us  know  what  it 
is  to  have  been  beaten  time  after  time  in  the  attempt 
to  shake  off  the  dominion  of  some  habit  or  evil,  and  to 
alter  the  bearing  and  the  direction  of  the  whole  life, 
and  we  have  to  say,  *  It  is  no  good  trying  any  longer 
my  life  must  run  on  in  the  channel  which  I  have  carved 
for  it ;  I  have  made  my  bed  and  I  must  lie  on  it ;  I 
cannot  get  rid  of  these  things.'  And,  no  doubt,  in 
certain  aspects,  change  is  impossible.  There  are  certain 
limitations  of  natural  disposition  which  I  never  can 
overcome.  For  instance,  if  I  have  no  musical  ear  I 
cannot  turn  myself  into  a  musician.  If  I  have  no 
mathematical  faculty  it  is  no  good  poring  over  Euclid, 
for,  with  the  best  intentions  in  the  world,  I  shall  make 
nothing  of  it.  We  must  work  within  the  limits  of  our 
natural  disposition,  and  cut  our  coat  according  to  our 
cloth.  In  that  respect  to-morrow  will  be  as  yesterday, 
and  there  cannot  be  any  change.  And  it  is  quite  true 
that  character,  which  is  the  great  precipitate  from  the 
waters  of  conduct,  gets  rocky,  that  habits  become 
persistent,  and  man's  will  gets  feeble  by  long  indulgence 
in  any  course  of  life.  But  for  all  that,  admitting  to 
the  full  all  that,  I  am  here  now  to  say  to  every 
man  and  woman  in  this  place,  *  Friend,  you  may  make 
your  life  from  this  moment  so  unlike  the  blotted, 
stained,  faultful,  imperfect,  sinful  past  that  no  words 
other  than  the  words  of  the  New  Testament  will  be 
large  enough  to  express  the  fact.  "  If  any  man  be  in 
Christ  he  is  a  new  creature,  old  things  are  passed 
away." '  For  we  all  know  how  into  any  life  the  coming 
of  some  large  conviction  not  believed  in  or  perceived 
before,  may  alter  the  whole  bias,  current,  and  direction 
of  it ;  how  into  any  life  the  coming  of  a  new  love  not 


V.9]     THE  PAST  AND  THE  FUTURE     315 

cherished  and  entertained  before,  may  ennoble  and 
transfigure  the  whole  of  its  nature ;  how  into  any  life 
the  coming  of  new  motives,  not  yielded  to  and  recog- 
nised before,  may  make  all  things  new  and  different. 
These  three  plain  principles,  the  power  of  conviction, 
the  power  of  affection,  the  power  of  motive,  are  broad 
enough  to  admit  of  building  upon  them  this  great  and 
helpful  and  hopeful  promise  to  us  all — '  The  time  past 
of  our  life  may  suffice  us  to  have  wrought  the  will  of 
the  Gentiles,'  that '  henceforth  we  may  live  the  rest  of 
our  time  in  the  flesh  according  to  the  will  of  God.' 

To  you  who  have  been  living  in  the  past  with  little 
regard  to  the  supreme  powers  and  principles  of  Christ's 
love  and  God's  Gospel  in  Him,  I  bring  the  offer  of 
a  radical  revolution;  and  I  tell  you  that  if  you  like 
you  may  this  day  begin  a  life  which,  though  it  shall 
be  like  yesterday  in  outward  things,  in  the  continuity 
of  some  habits,  in  the  continuance  of  character,  shall 
be  all  under  the  influence  of  an  entirely  new,  and 
Tmovating,  and  renovating  power.    I  ask  you  whether 

ju  don't  think  that  you  have  had  enough,  to  use  the 
language  of  my  text,  in  the  part  of  obeying  the  will  of 
the  flesh ;  and  I  beseech  you  that  you  will  let  these  great 
principles,  these  grand  convictions  which  cluster  round 
and  explain  the  cross  of  Jesus  Christ,  influence  your 
mind,  character,  habits,  desires,  thoughts,  actions ;  that 
you  will  yield  yourself  to  the  new  power  of  the  Spirit 
of  life  in  Christ,  which  is  granted  to  us  if  only  we 
submit  ourselves  to  it  and  humbly  desire  it.  And  to 
you  who  have  in  some  measure  lived  by  this  mighty 
influence  I  come  with  the  message  for  you  and  for 
myself  that  the  time  to  come  may,  if  we  will,  be  filled 
very  much  fuller  than  it  is ;  '  To-morrow  may  be  as  this 
day,  and  much  more  abundant.'    I  believe  in  a  patient. 


316  ECCLESIASTES  [ch.i. 

reflecting,  abundant  examination  of  the  past.  The  old 
proverb  says  that '  Every  man  by  the  time  he  is  forty  is 
either  a  fool  or  a  physician ' ;  and  any  man  or  woman 
by  the  time  they  get  ten  years  short  of  that  age,  ought 
to  know  where  they  are  weakest,  and  ought  to  be  able 
to  guard  against  the  weak  places  in  their  character.  I 
do  not  believe  in  self-examination  for  the  purpose  of 
finding  in  a  man's  own  character  reasons  for  answering 
the  question,  *Am  I  a  Christian?'  But  I  do  believe 
that  no  people  will  avail  themselves  fully  of  the  power 
God  has  given  them  for  making  the  future  brighter 
and  better  than  the  past  who  have  not  a  very  clear, 
accurate,  comprehensive,  and  penetrating  knowledge 
of  their  faults  and  their  failures  in  the  past.  I  suppose 
if  the  Tay  Bridge  is  to  be  built  again,  it  won't  be  built 
of  the  same  pattern  as  that  which  was  blown  into  the 
water  last  week;  and  you  and  I  ought  to  learn  by 
experience  the  places  in  our  souls  that  give  in  the 
tempests,  where  there  is  most  need  for  strengthening 
the  bulwarks  and  defending  our  natures.  And  so  I 
say,  begin  with  the  abundant  recognition  of  the  past, 
and  then  a  brave  confidence  in  the  possibilities  of  the 
future.  Let  us  put  ourselves  under  that  great  renovat- 
ing Power  which  is  conviction  and  affection  and  motive 
all  in  one.  'He  loved  me  and  gave  Himself  for  me.' 
And  so  while  we  front  the  future  we  can  feel  that, 
God  being  in  us,  and  Christ  being  in  us,  we  shall  make 
it  a  far  brighter  and  fairer  thing  than  the  blurred  and 
blotted  past  which  to-day  is  buried,  and  life  may  go  on 
with  grand  blessedness  and  power  until  we  shall  hear 
the  great  voice  from  the  Throne  say,  *  There  shall  be  no 
more  death,  no  more  sorrow,  no  more  crying,  no  more 
pain,  for  the  former  things  are  passed  away,'  *  Behold ! 
I  make  all  things  new.' 


TWO  VIEWS  OF  LIFE 

'Thla  Bor«  travail  hath  God  given  to  the  sons  of  man,  to  be  exercised  therewith. 

— EccLES.  i.  13. 

'He  for  oar  profit,  that  we  might  be  partakers  of  His  holiness.'— 

Hebrews  xii.  10. 

These  two  texts  set  before  us  human  life  as  it  looks  to 
two  observers.  The  former  admits  that  God  shapes  it ; 
but  to  him  it  seems  sore  travail,  the  expenditure  of 
much  trouble  and  efforts ;  the  results  of  which  seem  to 
be  nothing  beyond  profitless  exercise.  There  is  an 
immense  activity  and  nothing  to  show  for  it  at  the 
end  but  wearied  limbs.  The  other  observer  sees,  at 
least,  as  much  of  sorrow  and  trouble  as  the  former, 
but  he  believes  in  the  'Father  of  spirits,'  and  in  a 
hereafter ;  and  these,  of  course,  bring  a  meaning  and  a 
wider  purpose  into  the  *  sore  travail,'  and  make  it,  not 
futile  but,  profitable  to  our  highest  good. 

I.  Note  first  the  Preacher's  gloomy  half-truth. 

The  word  rendered  in  our  text  *  travail '  is  a  favourite 
one  with  the  writer.  It  means  occupation  which  costs 
effort  and  causes  trouble.  The  phrase  '  to  be  exercised 
therewith,'  rather  means  to  fatigue  themselves,  so  that 
life  as  looked  upon  by  the  Preacher  consists  of  effort 
without  result  but  weariness. 

If  he  knew  it  at  all,  it  was  very  imperfectly  and 
dimly;  and  whatever  may  be  thought  of  teaching  on 
that  subject  which  appears  in  the  formal  conclusion  of 
the  book,  the  belief  in  a  future  state  certainly  exercises 
no  influence  on  its  earlier  portions.  These  represent 
phases  through  which  the  writer  passes  on  his  way  to 
his  conclusion.  He  does  believe  in  'God,'  but,  very 
significantly,  he  never  uses  the  sacred  name  '  Lord.'  He 
has  shaken  himself  free,  or  he  wishes  to  represent  a 

817 


318  ECCLESIASTES  [ch.i. 

character  who  has  shaken  himself  free  from  Kevela- 
tion,  and  is  fighting  the  problem  of  life,  its  meaning 
and  worth,  without  any  help  from  Law,  or  Prophet,  or 
Psalm.  He  does  retain  belief  in  what  he  calls  'God,' 
but  his  pure  Theism,  with  little,  if  any,  faith  in  a  future 
life,  is  a  creed  which  has  no  power  of  unravelling  the 
perplexed  mysteries  of  life,  and  of  answ^ering  the 
question,  'What  does  it  all  mean?'  With  keen  and 
cynical  vision  he  looks  out  not  only  over  men,  as  in 
this  first  chapter,  but  over  nature;  and  what  mainly 
strikes  him  is  the  enormous  amount  of  work  that  is 
being  done,  and  the  tragical  poverty  of  its  results. 
The  question  with  which  he  begins  his  book  is,  '  What 
profit  hath  a  man  of  all  his  labour  wherein  he  laboureth 
under  the  sun  ? '  And  for  answer  he  looks  at  the  sun 
rising  and  going  down,  and  being  in  the  same  place 
after  its  journey  through  the  heavens ;  and  he  hears 
the  wind  continually  howling  and  yet  returning  again 
to  its  circuits ;  and  the  waters  now  running  as  rivers 
into  the  sea  and  again  drawn  up  in  vapours,  and  once 
more  falling  in  rain  and  running  as  waters.  This 
wearisome  monotony  of  intense  activity  in  nature  is 
paralleled  by  all  that  is  done  by  man  under  heaven, 
and  the  net  result  of  all  is  '  Vanity  and  a  strife  after 
wind.' 

The  writer  proceeds  to  confirm  his  dreary  conclusion 
by  a  piece  of  autobiography  put  into  the  mouth  of 
Solomon.  He  is  represented  as  flinging  himself  into 
mirth  and  pleasure,  into  luxury  and  debauchery,  and  as 
satisfying  every  hunger  for  any  joy,  and  as  being 
pulled  up  short  in  the  midst  of  his  rioting  by  the 
conviction,  like  a  funeral  bell,  tolling  in  his  mind  that 
all  was  vanity.  'He  gave  himself  to  wisdom,  and 
madness,  and  folly ' ;  and  in  all  he  found  but  one  result 


V.13]  TWO  VIEWS  OF  LIFE  819 

— enormous  effort  and  no  profit.  There  seemed  to  be  a 
time  for  everything,  and  a  kind  of  demonic  power  in 
men  compelling  them  to  toil  as  with  equal  energy,  now 
at  building  up,  and  now  at  destroying.  But  to  every 
purpose  he  saw  that  there  was  'time  and  judgment,' 
and  therefore,  'the  misery  of  man  was  great  upon 
him.'  To  his  jaundiced  eye  the  effort  of  life  appeared 
like  the  play  of  the  wind  in  the  desert,  always  busy, 
but  sometime  busy  in  heaping  the  sands  in  hillocks, 
and  sometimes  as  busy  in  levelling  them  to  a  plain. 

We  may  regard  such  a  view  of  humanity  as  gro- 
tesquely pessimistic ;  but  there  is  no  doubt  that  many 
of  us  do  make  of  life  little  more  than  what  the  Preacher 
thought  it.  It  is  not  only  the  victims  of  civilisation 
who  are  forced  to  wearisome  monotony  of  toil  which 
barely  yields  daily  bread;  but  we  see  all  around  us 
men  and  women  wearing  out  their  lives  in  the  race 
after  a  false  happiness,  gaining  nothing  by  the  race 
but  weariness.  What  shall  we  say  of  the  man  who,  in 
the  desire  to  win  wealth,  or  reputation,  lives  laborious 
days  of  cramping  effort  in  one  direction,  and  allows  all 
the  better  part  of  his  nature  to  be  atrophied,  and  die, 
and  passes,  untasted,  brooks  by  the  way,  the  modest 
joys  and  delights  that  run  through  the  dustiest  lives. 
What  is  the  difference  between  a  squirrel  in  the  cage 
who  only  makes  his  prison  go  round  the  faster  by  his 
swift  race,  and  the  man  who  lives  toilsome  days  for 
transitory  objects  which  he  may  never  attain  ?  In  the 
old  days  every  prison  was  furnished  with  a  tread-mill, 
on  which  the  prisoner  being  set  was  bound  to  step  up 
on  each  tread  of  the  revolving  wheel,  not  in  order  to 
rise,  but  in  order  to  prevent  him  from  breaking  his 
legs.  How  many  men  around  us  are  on  such  a  mill, 
and  how  many  of  them  have  fastened  themselves  on  it, 


320  ECCLESIASTES  [ch.i. 

and  by  their  own  misreading  and  misuse  of  life  have 
turned  it  into  a  dreary  monotony  of  resultless  toil. 
The  Preacher  may  be  more  ingenious  than  sound  in 
his  pessimism,  but  let  us  not  forget  that  every  godless 
man  does  make  of  life  '  Vanity  and  strife  after  wind.' 

II.  The  higher  truth  which  completes  the  Preacher's. 

Of  course  the  fragmentary  sentence  in  our  second 
text  needs  to  be  completed  from  the  context,  and  so 
completed  will  stand,  '  God  chastens  us  for  our  profit, 
that  we  should  be  partakers  of  His  holiness.'  Now  let 
us  consider  for  a  moment  the  thought  that  the  true 
meaning  of  life  is  discipline.  I  say  discipline  rather 
than  'chastening,'  for  chastening  simply  implies  the 
fact  of  pain,  whereas  discipline  includes  the  wholesome 
purpose  of  pain.  The  true  meaning  of  life  is  not  to  be 
found  by  estimating  its  sorrows  or  its  joys,  but  by 
trying  to  estimate  the  effects  of  either  upon  us.  The 
true  value  of  life,  and  the  meaning  of  all  its  tears  and 
of  all  its  joys,  is  what  it  makes  us.  If  the  enormous 
effort  which  struck  the  Preacher  issues  in  strengthened 
muscles  and  braced  limbs,  it  is  not  '  vanity.'  He  who 
carries  away  with  him  out  of  life  a  character  moulded 
as  God  would  have  it,  does  not  go  in  all  points  *  naked 
as  he  came.'  He  bears  a  developed  self,  and  that  is  the 
greatest  treasure  that  a  man  can  carry  out  of  multi- 
tudinous toils  of  the  busiest  life.  If  we  would  think 
less  of  our  hard  work  and  of  our  heavy  sorrows,  and 
more  of  the  loving  purpose  which  appoints  them  all, 
we  should  find  life  less  difficult,  less  toilsome,  less 
mysterious.  That  one  thought  taken  to  our  hearts, 
and  honestly  applied  to  everything  that  befalls  us, 
would  untie  many  a  riddle,  would  wipe  away  many  a 
tear,  would  bring  peace  and  patience  into  many  a 
heart,  and  would  make  still  brighter  many  a  gladness. 


V.13]  TWO  VIEWS  OF  LlFEi  821 

Without  it  our  lives  are  a  chaos ;  with  it  they  would 
become  an  ordered  world. 

But  the  recognition  of  the  hand  that  ministers  the 
discipline  is  needed  to  complete  the  peacefulness  of 
faith.  It  would  be  a  dreary  world  if  we  could  only 
think  of  some  inscrutable  or  impersonal  power  that 
inflicted  the  discipline ;  but  if  in  its  sharpest  pangs  we 
give  *  reverence  to  the  Father  of  spirits,'  we  shall  •  live.' 
Of  course,  a  loving  father  sees  to  his  children's  educa- 
tion, and  a  loving  child  cannot  but  believe  that  the 
father's  single  purpose  in  all  his  discipline  is  his  good. 
The  good  that  is  sought  to  be  attained  by  the  sharpest 
chastisement  is  better  than  the  good  that  is  given  by 
weak  indulgence.  When  the  father's  hand  wields  the 
rod,  and  a  loving  child  receives  the  strokes,  they  may 
sting,  but  they  do  not  wound.  The  '  fathers  of  our  flesh 
chasten  us  after  their  own  pleasure,'  and  there  may 
be  error  and  arbitrariness  in  their  action;  and  the 
child  may  sometimes  nourish  a  right  sense  of  injustice, 
but  'the  Father  of  spirits'  makes  no  mistakes,  and 
never  strikes  too  hiird.  'He  for  our  profit'  carries 
with  it  the  declaration  that  the  deep  heart  of  God  doth 
not  willingly  afflict,  and  seeks  in  afflicting  for  nothing 
but  His  children's  good. 

Nor  are  these  all  the  truths  by  which  the  New 
Testament  completes  and  supersedes  the  Preacher's 
pessimism,  for  our  text  closes  by  unveiling  the  highest 
profit  which  discipline  is  meant  to  secure  to  us  as 
being  that  we  sh  :)uld  be  'partakers  of  His  holiness.' 
The  Biblical  conception  of  holiness  in  God  is  that  of 
separation  from  and  elevation  above  the  creature. 
Man's  holiness  is  separation  from  the  world  and  dedica- 
tion to  God.  He  is  separated  from  the  world  by  moral 
perfection  yet  more  than  by  His  other  attributes,  and 

X 


822  ECCLESIASTES  [oh.i. 

men  who  have  yielded  themselves  to  Him  will  share  in 
that  characteristic.  This  assimilation  to  His  nature  is 
the  highest  *  profit '  to  which  we  can  attain,  and  all  the 
purpose  of  His  chastening  is  to  make  us  more  com- 
pletely like  Himself.  '  The  fathers  of  our  flesh '  chasten 
with  a  view  to  the  brief  earthly  life,  but  His  chastening 
looks  onwards  beyond  the  days  of  'strife  and  vanity' 
to  a  calm  eternity. 

Thus,  then,  the  immortality  which  glimmered  doubt- 
fully in  the  end  of  his  book  before  the  eyes  of  the 
Preacher  is  the  natural  inference  for  the  Christian 
thought  of  moral  discipline  as  the  great  purpose  of 
life.  No  doubt  it  might  be  possible  for  a  man  to  believe 
in  the  supreme  importance  of  character,  and  in  all  the 
discipline  of  life  as  subsidiary  to  its  development,  and 
yet  not  believe  in  another  world,  where  all  that  was 
tendency,  often  thwarted,  should  be  accomplished  re- 
sult, and  the  schooling  ended  the  rod  should  be  broken. 
But  such  a  position  will  be  very  rare  and  very  absurd. 
To  recognise  moral  discipline  as  the  greatest  purpose  of 
life,  gives  quite  overwhelming  probability  to  a  future. 
Surely  God  does  not  take  such  pains  with  us  in  order 
to  make  no  more  of  us  than  He  makes  of  us  in  this 
world.  Surely  human  life  becomes  '  confusion  worse 
confounded'  if  it  is  carefully,  sedulously,  continuously 
tended,  checked,  inspired,  developed  by  all  the  various 
experiences  of  sorrow  and  joy,  and  then,  at  death, 
broken  short  off,  as  a  man  might  break  a  stick  across 
his  knee,  and  the  fragments  tossed  aside  and  forgotten. 
If  we  can  say,  'He  for  our  profit  that  we  might  be 
partakers  of  His  holiness,'  we  have  the  right  to  say 
'  We  shall  be  like  Him,  for  we  shall  see  Him  as  He  is.' 


•A  TIME  TO  PLANT' 

*  A  time  to  plant.'— Ecclks.  iii.  2. 

The  writer  enumerates  in  this  context  a  number  of 
opposite  courses  of  conduct  arranged  in  pairs,  each  of 
which  is  rfght  at  the  right  time.  The  view  thus 
presented  seems  to  him  to  be  depressing,  and  to 
make  life  difficult  to  understand,  and  aimless.  We 
always  appear  to  be  building  up  with  one  hand  and 
pulling  down  with  the  other.  The  ship  never  heads 
for  two  miles  together  in  the  same  direction.  The 
history  of  human  affairs  appears  to  be  as  purposeless 
as  the  play  of  the  w^ind  on  the  desert  sands,  which  it 
sometimes  piles  into  huge  mounds  and  then  scatters. 

So  he  concludes  that  only  God,  who  appoints  the 
seasons  that  demand  opposite  courses  of  conduct, 
can  understand  what  it  all  means.  The  engiue-driver 
knows  why  he  reverses  his  engine,  and  not  the  wheels 
that  are  running  in  opposite  directions  in  consecutive 
moments  according  to  his  will. 

Now  that  is  a  one-sided  view,  of  course,  for  it  is  to  L.e 
remembered  that  the  Book  of  Ecclesiastes  is  the  log- 
book of  a  voyager  after  truth,  and  tells  us  all  the 
wanderings  and  errors  of  his  thinking  until  he  has 
arrived  at  the  haven  of  the  conclusion  that  he  an- 
nounces in  the  final  word :  *  Hear  the  sum  of  the  whole 
matter:  Fear  God,  and  keep  His  commandments,  for 
this  is  the  whole  duty  of  man.' 

I  have  nothing  to  do  just  now  with  the  conclusion 
which  he  arrives  at,  but  the  facts  from  which  he  starts 
are  significant  and  important.    There  are  things  in  \ 
life,  God  has  so  arranged  it,  which  can  only  be  done 
fittingly,  and  for   the   most   part  of  all,  at   certain 

82S 


324  ECCLESIASTES  [cH.m. 

seasons;  and  the  secret  of  success  is  the  discernment 
of  present  duty,  and  the  prompt  performance  of  it. 

And  this  is  especially  true  about  your  time  of  life, 
my  young  friends.  There  are  things,  very  important 
things,  which,  unless  you  do  them  now,  the  over- 
whelming probability  is  that  you  will  never  do  at  all ; 
and  the  certainty  is  that  you  will  not  do  them  half  as 
well.  And  so  I  want  to  ask  you  to  look  at  these  words, 
which,  by  a  legitimate  extension  of  the  writer's  mean- 
ing, and  taking  them  in  a  kind  of  parabolic  way,  may 
sum  up  for  us  the  whole  of  the  special  duties  of  youth. 
*  A  time  to  plant.' 

I.  Now,  my  first  remark  is  this :  that  you  are  now  in 
the  planting  time  of  your  lives. 

.  No  wise  forester  will  try  to  shift  shrubs  or  to  put 
them  into  his  gardens  or  woods,  except  in  late  autumn 
or  early  spring.  And  our  lives  are  as  really  under  the 
dominion  of  the  law  of  seasons  as  the  green  world  of 
the  forest  and  the  fields.  Speaking  generally,  and 
admitting  the  existence  of  many  exceptions,  the  years 
between  childhood  and,  say,  two  or  three-and-twenty, 
for  a  young  man  or  woman,  for  the  most  part  settle 
the  main  outline  of  their  character,  and  thereby  deter- 
mine their  history,  which,  after  all,  is  mainly  the 
outcome  of  their  character. 

You  have  wide  possibilities  before  you,  of  moulding 
your  characters  into  beauty,  and  purity,  holiness,  and 
strength. 

For  one  thing,  you  have  got  no  past,  or  next  to  none, 
written  all  over,  which  it  is  hard  to  erase.  You  have 
substantially  a  clean  sheet  on  which  to  write  what  you 
like.  Your  stage  of  life  predisposes  you  in  favour  of 
novelty.  New  things  are  glad  things  to  you,  whereas 
to  us  older  people  a  new  thought  coming  into  some  of 


T.  2]  «A  TIME  TO  PLANT  '  825 

our  brains  is  like  a  new  bit  of  furniture  coming  into 
a  crowded  room.  All  the  other  pieces  need  to  be 
arranged,  and  it  is  more  of  a  trouble  than  anything 
else.  You  are  flexible  and  plastic  as  yet,  like  the  iron 
running  out  of  the  blast  furnace  in  a  molten  stream, 
which  in  half  an  hour's  time  will  be  a  rigid  bar  that  no 
man  can  bend. 

You  have  all  these  things  in  your  favour,  and  so, 
dear  young  friends,  whether  you  think  of  it  or  not, 
whether  voluntarily  or  not,  I  want  you  to  remember 
that  this  awful  process  is  going  on  inevitably  and 
constantly  in  every  one  of  you.  You  are  planting, 
whether  you  recognise  the  fact  or  no.  What  are  you 
planting  ? 

Well,  for  one  thing,  you  are  making  hahits,  which 
are  but  actions  hardened,  like  the  juice  that  exudes 
from  the  pine-tree,  liquid,  or  all  but  liquid,  when  it 
comes  out,  and  when  exposed  to  the  air,  is  solidified  and 
tenacious.  The  old  legend  of  the  man  in  the  tower 
who  got  a  slim  thread  up  to  his  window,  to  which  was 
attached  one  thicker  and  then  thicker,  and  so  on  ever 
increasing  until  he  hauled  in  a  cable,  is  a  true  parable 
of  what  goes  on  in  every  human  life.  Some  one  deed, 
a  thin  film  like  a  spider's  thread,  draws  after  it  a 
thicker,  by  that  inevitable  law  that  a  thing  done  once 
tends  to  be  done  twice,  and  that  the  second  time  it  is 
easier  than  the  first  time.  A  man  makes  a  track  with 
great  difficulty  across  the  snow  in  a  morning,  but  every 
time  that  he  travels  it,  it  is  a  little  harder,  and  the 
track  is  a  little  broader,  and  it  is  easier  walking.  You 
play  with  the  tiger's  whelp  of  some  pleasant,  question- 
able enjoyment,  and  you  think  that  it  will  always  keep 
so  innocent,  with  its  budding  claws  not  able  to  draw 
blood,  but  it  grows— i^  grows.    And  it  grows  according 


826  ECCLESIASTES  [ch.iii. 

to  its  kind,  and  what  was  a  plaything  one  day  is  a 
full-grown  and  ravening  wild  beast  in  a  while.  You 
are  making  habits,  whatever  else  you  are  making,  and 
you  are  planting  in  your  hearts  seeds  that  will  spring 
and  bear  fruit  according  to  their  kind. 

Then  remember,  you  are  planting  belief. — Most  of  us, 
I  am  afraid,  get  our  opinions  by  haphazard;  like  the 
child  in  the  well-known  story,  whose  only  account  of 
herself  was  that  *she  expected  she  growed.'  That  is 
the  way  by  which  most  of  you  come  to  what  you 
dignify  by  the  name  of  your  opinions.  They  come  in 
upon  you,  you  do  not  know  how.  Youth  is  receptive 
of  anything  new.  You  can  learn  a  vast  deal  more 
easily  than  many  of  us  older  people  can.  Set  down  a 
man  who  has  never  learned  the  alphabet,  to  learn  his 
letters,  and  see  what  a  task  it  is  for  him.  Or  if  he  takes 
a  pen  in  his  hand  for  the  first  time,  look  how  difficult 
the  stiff  wrist  and  thick  knuckles  find  it  to  bend.  Yours 
is  the  time  for  forming  your  opinions,  for  forming 
some  rational  and  intelligent  account  of  yourself  and 
the  world  about  you.  See  to  it,  that  you  plant  truth  in 
your  hearts,  under  which  you  may  live  sheltered  for 
many  days. 

Then  again,  you  are  planting  character,  which  is  not 
only  habit,  but  something  more.  You  are  making 
yourselves^  whatever  else  you  are  making.  You  begin 
with  almost  boundless  possibilities,  and  these  narrow 
and  narrow  and  narrow,  according  to  your  actions, 
until  you  have  laid  the  rails  on  which  you  travel — one 
narrow  line  that  you  cannot  get  off.  A  man's  character 
is,  if  I  may  use  a  chemical  term,  a  *  precipitate '  from 
his  actions.  Why,  it  takes  acres  of  roses  to  make  a 
flask  of  perfume ;  and  all  the  long  life  of  a  man  is 
represented  in  his  ultimate  character.    Character  is 


V.2]  *A  TIME  TO  PLANT*  327 

formed  like  those  chalk  cliffs  in  the  south,  built  up 
eight  hundred  feet,  beetling  above  the  stormy  sea ;  and 
all  made  up  of  the  relics  of  microscopic  animals.  So 
you  build  up  a  great  solid  structure — yourself — out  of 
all  your  deeds.  You  are  making  your  character,  your 
habits,  your  opinions. — And  you  are  making  your 
reputation  too.  And  you  will  not  be  able  to  get  rid  of 
that.  This  is  the  time  for  you  to  make  a  good  record 
or  a  bad  one,  in  other  people's  opinions. 

And  so,  young  men  and  women,  boys  and  girls,  I 
want  you  to  remember  the  permanent  effects  of  your 
most  fleeting  acts.  Nothing  ever  dies  that  a  man  does. 
Nothing !  You  go  into  a  museum,  and  you  will  see 
standing  there  a  slab  of  red  sandstone,  and  little  dints 
and  dimples  upon  it.  What  are  they?  Marks  made 
by  a  flying  shower  that  lasted  for  five  minutes,  nobody 
knows  how  many  millenniums  ago.  And  there  they  are, 
and  there  they  will  be  until  the  world  is  burned  up. 
So  our  fleeting  deeds  are  all  recorded  here,  in  our 
permanent  character.  Everything  that  we  have  done 
is  laid  up  there  in  the  testimony  of  the  rocks : — 

'  Through  our  soul  the  echoes  roll. 
And  grow  for  ever  and  for  ever.' 

You  are  now  living  in  'a  time  to  plant.' 

II.  Notice,  in  the  next  place,  that  as  surely  as  now  is 
the  time  to  plant,  then  will  be  a  time  to  reap. 

I  do  not  know  whether  the  writer  of  my  text  meant 
the  harvest,  when  he  put  in  antithesis  to  my  text  the 
other  clause,  'and  a  time  to  pluck  up  that  which  is 
planted.'  Probably,  as  most  of  the  other  pairs  are 
opposites,  here,  too,  we  are  to  see  an  opposite  rather 
than  a  result;  the  destructive  action  of  plucking  up, 
and  not  the  preservative  action  of  gathering  a  harvest. 


328  ECCLESIASTES  [ch.  hi. 

But,  however  that  may  be,  let  me  remind  you 
that  there  stands,  irrefragable,  for  every  human 
soul  and  every  human  deed,  this  great  solemn  law  of 
retribution. 

Now  what  lies  in  that  law?  Two  things — that  the 
results  are  similar  in  kind,  and  more  in  number.  The 
law  of  likeness,  and  the  law  of  increase,  both  of  them 
belong  to  the  working  of  the  law  of  retribution.  And 
so,  be  sure  that  you  will  find  out  that  all  your  past  lives 
on  into  your  present ;  and  that  the  present,  in  fact,  is 
very  little  more  than  the  outcome  of  the  past.  What 
you  plant  as  a  youth  you  will  reap  as  a  man.  This 
mysterious  life  of  ours  is  all  sowing  and  reaping  inter- 
mingled, right  away  on  to  the  very  end.  Each  action 
is  in  turn  the  child  of  all  the  preceding  and  the  parent 
of  all  that  follows.  But  still,  though  that  be  true,  your 
time  of  life  is  predominantly  the  time  of  sowing ;  and 
my  time  of  life,  for  instance,  is  predominantly  the  time 
of  reaping.  There  are  a  great  many  things  that  I 
could  not  do  now  if  I  wished.  There  are  a  great  many 
things  in  our  past  that  I,  and  men  of  my  age,  would 
fain  alter ;  but  there  they  stand,  and  nothing  can  do 
away  the  marks  of  that  which  once  has  been.  We 
have  to  reap,  and  so  will  you  some  day. 

And  I  will  tell  you  what  you  will  have  to  reap,  as 
sure  as  you  are  sitting  in  those  pews.  You  will  have 
the  enlarged  growth  of  your  present  characteristics. 
A  man  takes  a  photograph  upon  a  sensitive  plate,  half 
the  size  of  the  palm  of  my  hand ;  and  then  he  enlarges 
it  to  any  size  he  pleases.  And  that  is  what  life  does  for 
all  of  us.  The  pictures,  drawn  small  on  the  young 
man's  imagination,  on  the  young  woman's  dreaming 
heart,  be  they  of  angels  or  of  beasts,  are  permanent ; 
and  they  will  get  bigger  and  bigger  and  bigger,  as  you 


r.2]  *A  TIME  TO  PLANT'  829 

get  older.  You  do  not  reap  only  a8  much  as  you  sowed, 
but '  some  sixty  fold,  and  some  an  hundred  fold.' 

And  you  will  reap  the  increased  dominion  of  your 
early  habits.  There  is  a  grim  verse  in  the  Book  of 
Proverbs  that  speaks  about  a  man  being  tied  and 
bound  by  the  chains  of  his  sins.  And  that  is  just  say- 
ing that  the  things  which  you  chose  to  do  when  you 
were  a  boy,  many  of  them  you  will  have  to  do  when 
you  are  a  man;  because  you  have  lost  the  power, 
though  sometimes  not  the  will,  of  doing  anything  else. 
There  be  men  that  sow  the  wind,  and  they  do  not  reap 
the  wind,  but  the  law  of  increase  comes  in  and  they 
reap  the  whirlwind.  There  be  men  who,  according  to 
the  old  Greek  legend,  sow  dragon's  teeth  and  they  reap 
armed  soldiers.  There  are  some  of  you  that  are  sowing 
to  the  flesh,  and  as  sure  as  God  lives,  you  will  '  of  the 
flesh  reap  corruption.'  'Whatsoever  a  man  soweth, 
that,'  even  here,  'shall  he  also  reap.' 

And  let  me  remind  you  that  that  law  of  inheriting  the 
fruit  of  our  doings  is  by  no  means  exhausted  by  the 
experience  of  life.  Whenever  conscience  is  awakened 
it  at  once  testifies  not  only  of  a  broken  law,  but  of  a 
living  Law-giver ;  and  not  only  of  retribution  here,  but 
of  retribution  hereafter.  And  I  for  my  part  believe 
that  the  modern  form  of  Christianity  and  the  ten- 
dencies of  the  modern  pulpit,  influenced  by  some 
theological  discussions,  about  details  in  the  notion  of 
retribution  that  have  been  going  on  of  late  years,  have 
operated  to  make  ministers  of  the  Gospel  too  chary 
of  preaching,  and  hearers  indisposed  to  accept,  the 
message  of  'the  terror  of  the  Lord.'  My  dear  friends  I 
retribution  cannot  stop  on  this  side  of  the  grave,  and 
if  you  are  going  yonder  you  are  carrying  with  you  the 
necessity  in  yourself  for  inheriting  the  results  of  your 


330  ECCLESIASTES  [ch.iii. 

life  here.  I  beseech  you,  do  not  put  away  such  thoughts 
as  this,  with  the  notion  that  I  am  brandishing  before 
you  some  antiquated  doctrine,  fit  only  to  frighten  old 
women  and  children.  The  writer  of  the  Book  of 
Ecclesiastes  was  no  weak-minded,  superstitious  fanatic. 
He  was  far  more  disposed  to  scepticism  than  to  fanati- 
cism. But  for  all  that,  with  all  his  sympathy  for  young 
men's  breadth  and  liberality,  with  his  tolerance  for 
all  sorts  and  ways  of  living,  with  all  his  doubts  and 
questionings,  he  came  to  this,  and  this  was  his  teaching 
to  the  young  men  whom  in  idea  he  had  gathered  round 
his  chair, — '  Rejoice,  oh  young  man,  in  thy  youth.  And 
let  thy  heart  cheer  thee  in  the  days  of  thy  youth,  and 
walk  in  the  ways  of  thine  heart,  and  in  the  sight  of 
thine  eyes.'  By  all  means,  God  has  put  you  into  a  fair 
world,  and  meant  you  to  get  all  the  good  out  of  it. 
'  But,'  and  that  not  as  a  kill-joy,  *  know  thou,  that  for 
all  these  things  God  will  bring  thee  into  judgment,' 
and  shape  your  characters  accordingly. 

III.  Still  further,  let  me  say,  these  things  being  so, 
you  especially  need  to  ponder  them. 

That  is  so,  because  you  especially  are  in  danger  of 
forgetting  them.  It  is  meant  that  young  people  should 
live  by  impulse  much  more  than  by  reflection. 

•  If  nature  put  not  forth  her  power 
About  the  opening  of  the  flower, 
Who  is  there  that  could  live  an  hour  ? ' 

The  days  of  calculation  will  come  soon  enough ;  and 
I  do  not  want  to  hurry  them.  I  do  not  want  to  put  old 
heads  upon  young  shoulders.  I  would  rather  see  the 
young  ones,  a  great  deal.  But  I  want  you  not  to  go 
down  to  the  level  of  the  beast,  living  only  by  instinct 
and  by  impulse.    You  have  got  brains,  you  are  meant 


V.2]  *A  TIME  TO  PLANT'  331 

to  use  them.  You  have  the  great  divine  gift  of  reason, 
that  looks  before  and  after,  and  though  you  have  not 
much  experience  yet,  you  can,  if  you  will,  reflect  upon 
such  things  as  I  have  just  been  saying  to  you,  and 
take  them  into  your  hearts,  and  live  accordingly.  My 
dear  young  friend !  enjoy  yourself,  live  buoyantly,  yield 
to  your  impulses,  be  glad  for  the  beautiful  life  that  is 
unfolding  arovind  you,  and  the  strong  nature  that  is 
blossoming  within  you.  And  then  take  this  other 
lesson,  'Ponder  the  path  of  thy  feet,'  and  remember 
that  all  the  while  you  dance  along  the  flowery  path, 
you  are  planting  what  you  will  have  to  reap. 

Then,  still  further,  it  is  especially  needful  for  you 
that  you  should  ponder  these  things,  because  unless 
you  do  you  will  certainly  go  wrong.  If  you  do  not 
plant  good,  somebody  else  will  plant  evil.  An  untilled 
field  is  not  a  field  that  nothing  grows  in,  but  it  is  a 
field  full  of  weeds ;  and  the  world  and  the  flesh  and  the 
devil,  the  temptations  round  about  you  and  the  evil 
tendencies  in  you,  unless  they  are  well  kept  down  and 
kept  off,  are  sure  to  fill  your  souls  full  of  all  manner  of 
seeds  that  will  spring  up  to  bitterness,  and  poison,  and 
death.  Oh !  think,  think !  for  it  is  the  only  chance  of 
keeping  your  hearts  from  being  full  of  wickedness — 
think  what  you  are  sowing,  and  think  what  will  the 
harvest  be.  There  are  some  of  you,  as  I  said,  sowing 
to  the  flesh,  young  men  living  impure  and  wicked  lives, 
and  'their  bones  are  full  of  the  sins  of  their  youth.' 
There  are  some  of  you  letting  every  wind  bring  the 
thistledown  of  vanities,  and  scatter  them  all  across 
your  hearts,  that  they  may  spring  up  prickly,  and 
gifted  with  a  fatal  power  of  self -multiplication.  There 
are  some  of  you,  young  men,  and  young  women  too, 
whose  lives  are  divided  between  Manchester  business 


882  ECCLESIASTES  [ch.iii. 

and  that  ignoble  thirst  for  mere  amusement  which  is 
eating  all  the  dignity  and  the  earnestness  out  of  the 
young  men  of  this  city.  I  beseech  you,  do  not  slide 
into  habits  of  frivolity,  licentiousness,  and  sin,  for  want 
of  looking  after  yourselves.  Remember,  if  you  do  not 
ponder  the  path  of  your  feet,  you  are  sure  to  take  the 
turn  to  the  left. 
^  Again,  it  is  needful  for  you  to  ponder  these  things, 
for  if  you  waste  this  time,  it  will  never  come  back  to 
you  any  more.  It  is  useless  to  sow  corn  in  August. 
There  are  things  in  this  world  that  a  man  can  only 
get  when  he  is  young,  such  as  sound  education,  for 
instance ;  business  habits,  habits  of  industry,  of  appli- 
cation, of  concentration,  of  self-control,  a  reputation 
which  may  avail  in  the  future.  If  you  do  not  begin  to 
get  these  before  you  are  five-and-twenty,  you  will  never 
get  them. 

And  although  the  certainty  is  not  so  absolute  in 
regard  to  spiritual  and  religious  things,  the  dice  are 
frightfully  weighted,  and  the  chances  are  terribly 
small  that  a  young  man  who,  like  some  of  you,  has 
passed  his  early  years  in  church  or  chapel,  in  weekly 
contact  with  earnest  preaching,  and  has  not  accepted 
the  Saviour,  will  do  it  when  he  grows  old.  He  may ; 
he  may.  But  it  is  a  great  deal  more  likely  that  he 
will  not. 

IV.  The  conclusion  of  the  whole  matter  is.  Begin  on 
the  spot,  to  trust  and  to  serve  Jesus  Christ. 

These  are  the  best  things  to  plant — simple  reliance 
upon  His  death  for  your  forgiveness,  upon  His  power 
to  make  you  pure  and  clean ;  simple  submission  to  His 
commandment.  Oh !  dear  young  friend ;  if  you  have 
these  in  your  hearts  everything  will  come  right.  You 
will  get  habit  on  your  side,  and  that  is  much  ;  and  you 


T.2]  «A  TIME  TO  PLANT*  883 

will  be  saved  from  a  great  deal  of  misery  which  would 
be  yours  if  you  went  wrong  first,  and  then  came  right. 

If  you  will  plant  a  cutting  of  the  tree  of  life  in  your 
heart  it  will  yield  everything  to  you  when  it  grows. 
The  people  in  the  South  Seas,  if  they  have  a  palm-tree, 
can  get  out  of  it  bread  and  drink,  food,  clothing, 
shelter,  light,  materials  for  books,  cordage  for  their 
boats,  needles  to  sew  with,  and  everything.  If  you 
will  take  Jesus  Christ,  and  plant  Him  in  your  hearts, 
everything  will  come  out  of  that.  That  Tree  'bears 
twelve  manners  of  fruits,  and  yields  His  fruit  every 
month.'  With  Christ  in  your  heart  all  other  fair 
things  will  be  planted  there;  and  with  Him  in  your 
heart,  all  evil  things  which  you  may  already  have 
planted  there,  will  be  rooted  out.  Just  as  when  some 
strong  exotic  is  carried  to  some  distant  land  and  there 
takes  root,  it  exterminates  the  feebler  vegetation  of 
the  place  to  which  it  comes ;  so  with  Christ  in  my 
hea,rt  the  sins,  the  evil  habits,  the  passions,  the  lusts, 
and  all  other  foul  spawn  and  offspring,  will  die  and 
disappear.  Take  Him,  then,  dear  friend!  by  simple 
faith,  for  your  Saviour.  He  will  plant  the  good  seed  in 
your  spirit,  and  'instead  of  the  briar  shall  come  up  the 
myrtle.'  Your  lives  will  become  fruitful  of  goodness 
and  of  joy,  according  to  that  ancient  promise :  '  The 
righteous  shall  flourish  like  the  palm-tree ;  he  shall 
grow  like  a  cedar  in  Lebanon.  Those  that  be  planted 
in  the  house  of  the  Lord  shall  flourish  in  the  courts 
of  our  God.  They  shall  still  bring  forth  fruit  in 
old  age.* 


ETERNITY  IN  THE  HEART 

'  He  hath  made  every  thing  beautiful  in  hia  time :  also  He  hath  set  the  world 
in  their  heart.'— Eccles.  iii.  11. 

There  is  considerable  difficulty  in  understanding  what 
precise  meaning  is  to  be  attached  to  these  words,  and 
what  precise  bearing  they  have  on  the  general  course 
of  the  writer's  thoughts;  but  one  or  two  things  are, 
at  any  rate,  quite  clear. 

The  Preacher  has  been  enumerating  all  the  various 
vicissitudes  of  prosperity  and  adversity,  of  construc- 
tion and  destruction,  of  society  and  solitude,  of  love 
and  hate,  for  which  there  is  scope  and  verge  enough 
in  one  short  human  life;  and  his  conclusion  is,  as  it 
always  is  in  the  earlier  part  of  this  book,  that  because 
there  is  such  an  endless  diversity  of  possible  occupa- 
tion, and  each  of  them  lasts  but  for  a  little  time, 
and  its  opposite  has  as  good  a  right  of  existence  as 
itself;  therefore,  perhaps,  it  might  be  as  well  that 
a  man  should  do  nothing  as  do  all  these  opposite 
things  which  neutralise  each  other,  and  the  net  result 
of  which  is  nothing.  If  there  be  a  time  to  be  born 
and  a  time  to  die,  nonentity  would  be  the  same  when 
all  is  over.  If  there  be  a  time  to  plant  and  a  time 
to  pluck,  what  is  the  good  of  planting?  If  there  be 
a  time  for  love  and  a  time  for  hate,  why  cherish  affec- 
tions which  are  transient  and  may  be  succeeded  by 
their  opposites  ? 

And  then  another  current  of  thought  passes  through 
his  mind,  and  he  gets  another  glimpse  somewhat 
different,  and  says  in  effect,  'No!  that  is  not  all 
true— God  has  made  all  these  different  changes,  and 
although  each  of  them  seems  contradictory  of   the 

884 


v.ll]       ETERNITY  IN  THE  HEART         335 

other,  in  its  own  place  and  at  its  own  time  each  is 
beautiful  and  has  a  right  to  exist.'  The  contexture 
of  life,  and  even  the  perplexities  and  darknesses  of 
human  society,  and  the  varieties  of  earthly  condition — 
if  they  be  confined  within  their  own  proper  limits, 
and  regarded  as  parts  of  a  whole — they  are  all  co- 
operant  to  an  end.  As  from  wheels  turning  different 
ways  in  some  great  complicated  machine,  and  yet 
fitting  by  their  cogs  into  one  another,  there  may  be 
a.  resultant  direct  motion  produced  even  by  these 
apparently  antagonistic  forces. 

But  the  second  clause  of  our  text  adds  a  thought 
which  is  in  some  sense  contrasted  with  this. 

The  word  rendered  *  world '  is  a  very  frequent  one  in 
the  Old  Testament,  and  has  never  but  one  meaning, 
and  that  meaning  is  eternity.  •  He  hath  set  eternity  in 
their  heart.* 

Here,  then,  are  two  antagonistic  facts.  They  are 
transient  things,  a  vicissitude  which  moves  within 
natural  limits,  temporary  events  which  are  beautiful 
in  their  season.  But  there  is  also  the  contrasted  fact, 
that  the  man  who  is  thus  tossed  about,  as  by  some 
great  battledore  wielded  by  giant  powers  in  mockery, 
from  one  changing  thing  to  another,  has  relations  to 
something  more  lasting  than  the  transient.  He  lives 
in  a  world  of  fleeting  change,  but  he  has  'eternity* 
in  *  his  heart.'  So  between  him  and  his  dwelling-place, 
between  him  and  his  occupations,  there  is  a  gulf  of 
disproportion.  He  is  subjected  to  these  alternations, 
and  yet  bears  within  him  a  repressed  but  immortal 
consciousness  that  he  belongs  to  another  order  of 
things,  which  knows  no  vicissitude  and  fears  no  decay. 
He  possesses  stifled  and  misinterpreted  longings  which, 
however  starved,  do  yet  survive,  after  unchanging 


336  ECCLESIASTES  [ch.iii. 

Being  and  eternal  Rest.  And  thus  endowed,  and  by 
contrast  thus  situated,  his  soul  is  full  of  the  'blank 
misgiving  of  a  creature  moving  about  in  worlds  not 
realised.'  Out  of  these  two  facts — says  our  text — 
man's  where  and  man's  what,  his  nature  and  his 
position,  there  rises  a  mist  of  perplexity  and  darkness 
that  wraps  the  whole  course  of  the  divine  actions — 
unless,  indeed,  we  have  reached  that  central  height  of 
vision  above  the  mists,  which  this  Book  of  Ecclesiastes 
puts  forth  at  last  as  the  conclusion  of  the  whole 
matter — 'Fear  God,  and  keep  His  commandments.' 
If  transitory  things  with  their  multitudinous  and 
successive  waves  toss  us  to  solid  safety  on  the  Rock 
of  Ages,  then  all  is  well,  and  many  mysteries  will  be 
clear.  But  if  not,  if  we  have  not  found,  or  rather 
followed,  the  one  God-given  way  of  harmonising  these 
two  sets  of  experiences — life  in  the  transient,  and 
longings  for  the  eternal — then  their  antagonism 
darkens  our  thoughts  of  a  wise  and  loving  Providence, 
and  we  have  lost  the  key  to  the  confused  riddle  which 
the  world  then  presents.  'He  hath  made  everything 
beautiful  in  his  time:  also  He  hath  set  Eternity  in 
their  heart,  so  that  no  man  can  find  out  the  work 
that  God  maketh  from  the  beginning  to  the  end.' 

Such,  then,  being  a  partial  but,  perhaps,  not  entirely 
inadequate  view  of  the  course  of  thought  in  the  words 
before  us,  I  may  now  proceed  to  expand  the  considera- 
tions thus  brought  under  our  notice  in  them.  These 
may  be  gathered  up  in  three  principal  ones :  the  con- 
sciousness of  Eternity  in  every  heart ;  the  dispropor- 
tion thence  resulting  between  this  nature  of  ours  and 
the  order  of  things  in  which  we  dwell ;  and  finally,  the 
possible  satisfying  of  that  longing  in  men's  hearts — 
a  possibility  not  indeed  referred  to  in  our  text,  but 


V.  11]       ETERNITY  IN  THE  HEART        337 

unveiled  as  the  final  word  of  this  Book  of  Ecclesiastes, 
and  made  clear  to  us  in  Jesus  Christ. 

I.  Consider  that  eternity  is  set  in  every  human  heart. 

The  expression  is,  of  course,  somewhat  difficult,  even 
if  we  accept  generally  the  explanation  which  I  have 
given.  It  may  be  either  a  declaration  of  the  actual 
immortality  of  the  soul,  or  it  may  mean,  as  I  rather 
suppose  it  to  do,  the  consciousness  of  eternity  which 
is  part  of  human  nature. 

The  former  idea  is  no  doubt  closely  connected  with 
the  latter,  and  would  here  yield  an  appropriate  sense. 
We  should  then  have  the  contrast  between  man's  un- 
dying existence  and  the  transient  trifles  on  which  he 
is  tempted  to  fix  his  love  and  hopes.  We  belong  to 
one  set  of  existences  by  our  bodies,  and  to  another  by 
our  souls.  Though  we  are  parts  of  the  passing 
material  world,  yet  in  that  outward  frame  is  lodged 
a  personality  that  has  nothing  in  common  with  decay 
and  death.  A  spark  of  eternity  dwells  in  these  fleeting 
frames.  The  laws  of  physical  growth  and  accretion 
and  maturity  and  decay,  which  rule  over  all  things 
material,  do  not  apply  to  my  true  self.  *  In  our  embers 
is  something  that  doth  live.*  Whatsoever  befalls  the 
hairs  that  get  grey  and  thin,  and  the  hands  that  be- 
come wrinkled  and  palsied,  and  the  heart  that  is  worn 
out  by  much  beating,  and  the  blood  that  clogs  and 
clots  at  last,  and  the  filmy  eye,  and  all  the  corruptible 
frame;  yet,  as  the  heathen  said,  'I  shall  not  all  die,' 
but  deep  within  this  transient  clay  house,  that  must 
crack  and  fall  and  be  resolved  into  the  elements  out 
of  which  it  was  built  up,  there  dwells  an  immortal 
guest,  an  undying  personal  self.  In  the  heart,  the 
inmost  spiritual  being  of  every  man,  eternity,  in  this 
sense  of  the  word,  does  dwell. 

Y 


388  ECCLESI ASTES  [ch.  hi. 

•  Commonplaces,'  you  say.  Yes ;  commonplaces, 
which  word  means  two  things — truths  that  affect  us 
all,  and  also  truths  which,  because  they  are  so  universal 
and  so  entirely  believed,  are  all  but  powerless.  Surely 
it  is  not  time  to  stop  preaching  such  truths  as  long 
as  they  are  forgotten  by  the  overwhelming  majority 
of  the  people  who  acknowledge  them.  Thank  God ! 
the  staple  of  the  work  of  us  preachers  is  the  reitera- 
tion of  commonplaces,  which  His  goodness  has  made 
familiar,  and  our  indolence  and  sin  have  made  stale 
and  powerless. 

My  brother!  you  would  be  a  wiser  man  if,  instead 
of  turning  the  edge  of  statements  which  you  know 
to  be  true,  and  which,  if  true,  are  infinitely  solemn 
and  important,  by  commonplace  sarcasm  about  pulpit 
commonplaces,  you  would  honestly  try  to  drive  the 
familiar  neglected  truth  home  to  your  mind  and  heart. 
Strip  it  of  its  generality  and  think,  'It  is  true  about 
me.  I  live  for  ever.  My  outward  life  will  cease,  and 
my  dust  will  return  to  dust — but  /  shall  last  undying.' 
And  ask  yourselves — What  then  ?  '  Am  I  making  "  pro- 
vision for  the  flesh,  to  fulfil  the  lusts  thereof,"  in  more 
or  less  refined  fashion,  and  forgetting  to  provide  for 
that  which  lives  for  evermore  ?  Eternity  is  in  m,y 
heart.  What  a  madness  it  is  to  go  on,  as  if  either 
I  were  to  continue  for  ever  among  the  shows  of  time, 
or  when  I  leave  them  all,  to  die  wholly  and  be  done 
with  altogether ! ' 

But,  probably,  the  other  interpretation  of  these 
words  is  the  truer.  The  doctrine  of  immortality  does 
not  seem  to  be  stated  in  this  Book  of  Ecclesiastes, 
except  in  one  or  two  very  doubtful  expressions.  And 
it  is  more  in  accordance  with  its  whole  tone  to  suppose 
the  Preacher  here  to  be  asserting,  not  that  the  heart 


▼.11]       ETERNITY  IN  THE  HEART        389 

or  spirit  is  immortal,  but  that,  whether  it  is  or  no, 
in  the  heart  is  planted  the  thought,  the  consciousness  of 
eternity — and  the  longing  after  it. 

Let  me  put  that  into  other  words.  We,  brethren, 
are  the  only  beings  on  this  earth  who  can  think  the 
thought  and  speak  the  word — Eternity.  Other  creatures 
are  happy  while  immersed  in  time;  we  have  another 
nature,  and  are  disturbed  by  a  thought  which  shines 
high  above  the  roaring  sea  of  circumstance  in  which 
we  float. 

I  do  not  care  at  present  about  the  metaphysical 
puzzles  that  have  been  gathered  round  that  conception, 
nor  care  to  ask  whether  it  is  positive  or  negative, 
adequate  or  inadequate.  Enough  that  the  word  has 
a  meaning,  that  it  corresponds  to  a  thought  which 
dwells  in  men's  minds.  It  is  of  no  consequence  at  all 
for  our  purpose,  whether  it  is  a  positive  conception, 
or  simply  the  thinking  away  of  all  limitations.  'I 
know  what  God  is,  when  you  do  not  ask  me.'  I  know 
what  eternity  is,  though  I  cannot  define  the  word  to 
satisfy  a  metaphysician.  The  little  child  taught  by 
some  grandmother  Lois,  in  a  cottage,  knows  what  she 
means  when  she  tells  him  'you  will  live  for  ever,' 
though  both  scholar  and  teacher  would  be  puzzled  to 
put  it  into  other  words.  When  we  say  eternity  flows 
round  this  bank  and  shoal  of  time,  men  know  what 
we  mean.  Heart  answers  to  heart ;  and  in  each  heart 
lies  that  solemn  thought — for  ever ! 

Like  all  other  of  the  primal  thoughts  of  men's  souls, 
it  may  be  increased  in  force  and  clearness,  or  it  may 
be  neglected  and  opposed,  and  all  but  crushed.  The 
thought  of  God  is  natural  to  man,  the  thought  of  right 
and  wrong  is  natural  to  man — and  yet  there  may  be 
atheists  who  have  blinded  their  eyes,  and  there  may  be 


340  ECCLESIASTES  [ch.hi. 

degraded  and  almost  animal  natures  who  have  seared 
their  consciences  and  called  sweet  bitter  and  evil  good. 
Thus  men  may  so  plunge  themselves  into  the  present 
as  to  lose  the  consciousness  of  the  eternal — as  a  man 
swept  over  Niagara,  blinded  by  the  spray  and  deafened 
by  the  rush,  would  see  or  hear  nothing  outside  the 
green  walls  of  the  death  that  encompassed  him.  And 
yet  the  blue  sky  with  its  peaceful  spaces  stretches 
above  the  hell  of  waters. 

So  the  thought  is  in  us  all — a  presentiment  and  a 
consciousness;  and  that  universal  presentiment  itself 
goes  far  to  establish  the  reality  of  the  unseen  order 
of  things  to  which  it  is  directed.  The  great  planet 
that  moves  on  the  outmost  circle  of  our  system  was 
discovered  because  that  next  it  wavered  in  its  course 
in  a  fashion  which  was  inexplicable,  unless  some  un- 
known mass  was  attracting  it  from  across  millions  of 
miles  of  darkling  space.  And  there  are  '  perturbations ' 
in  our  spirits  which  cannot  be  understood,  unless  from 
them  we  may  divine  that  far-off  and  unseen  world, 
that  has  power  from  afar  to  sway  in  their  orbits  the 
little  lives  of  mortal  men.  It  draws  us  to  itself — but, 
alas !  the  attraction  may  be  resisted  and  thwarted. 
The  dead  mass  of  the  planet  benda  to  the  drawing, 
but  we  can  repel  the  constraint  which  the  eternal 
world  would  exercise  upon  us — and  so  that  conscious- 
ness which  ought  to  be  our  nobleness,  as  it  is  our 
prerogative,  may  become  our  shame,  our  misery,  and 
our  sin. 

That  Eternity  which  is  set  in  our  hearts  is  not 
merely  the  thought  of  ever-during  Being,  or  of  an 
everlasting  order  of  things  to  which  we  are  in  some 
way  related.  But  there  are  connected  with  it  other 
ideas  besides  those  of  mere  duration.    Men  know  what 


V.  11]       ETERNITY  IN  THE  HEART        841 

perfection  means.  They  understand  the  meaning  of 
perfect  goodness;  they  have  the  notion  of  infinite 
Wisdom  and  boundless  Love.  These  thoughts  are  the 
material  of  all  poetry,  the  thread  from  which  the 
imagination  creates  all  her  wondrous  tapestries.  This 
*  capacity  for  the  Infinite,'  as  people  call  it — which  is 
only  a  fine  way  of  putting  the  same  thought  as  that 
in  our  text — which  is  the  prerogative  of  human  spirits, 
is  likewise  the  curse  of  many  spirits.  By  their  misuse 
of  it  they  make  it  a  fatal  gift,  and  turn  it  into  an 
unsatisfied  desire  which  gnaws  their  souls,  a  famished 
yearning  which  *  roars,  and  suffers  hunger.'  Knowing 
what  perfection  is,  they  turn  to  limited  natures  and 
created  hearts  for  their  rest.  Having  the  haunting 
thought  of  an  absolute  Goodness,  a  perfect  Wisdom,  an 
endless  Love,  an  eternal  Life — they  try  to  find  the  being 
that  corresponds  to  their  thought  here  on  earth,  and 
so  they  are  plagued  with  endless  disappointment. 

My  brother !  God  has  put  eternity  in  your  heart.  Not 
only  will  you  live  for  ever,  but  also  in  your  present 
life  you  have  a  consciousness  of  that  eternal  and 
infinite  and  all-sufficient  Being  that  lives  above.  You 
have  need  of  Him,  and  whether  you  know  it  or  not, 
the  tendrils  of  your  spirits,  like  some  climbing  plant 
not  fostered  by  a  careful  hand  but  growing  wild,  are 
feeling  out  into  the  vacancy  in  order  to  grasp  the 
stay  which  they  need  for  their  fruitage  and  their 
strength. 

By  the  make  of  our  spirits,  by  the  possibilities  that 
dawn  dim  before  us,  by  the  thoughts  'whose  very 
sweetness  yieldeth  proof  that  they  were  born  for  im- 
mortality,'— by  all  these  and  a  thousand  other  signs 
and  facts  in  every  human  life  we  say,  'God  has  set 
eternity  in  their  hearts  I ' 


342  ECCLESIASTES  [ch.iii. 

II.  And  then  turn  to  the  second  idea  that  is  here. 
The  disproportion  between  this  our  nature,  and  the 
world  in  which  we  dwell. 

The  writer  of  this  book  (whether  Solomon  or  no  we 
need  not  stay  to  discuss)  looks  out  upon  the  world; 
and  in  accordance  with  the  prevailing  tone  of  all 
the  earlier  parts  of  his  contemplations,  finds  in  this 
prerogative  of  man  but  another  reason  for  saying,  *  All 
is  vanity  and  vexation  of  spirit.' 

Two  facts  meet  him  antagonistic  to  one  another :  the 
place  that  man  occupies,  and  the  nature  that  man 
bears.  This  creature  with  eternity  in  his  heart,  where 
is  he  set?  what  has  he  got  to  work  upon?  what  has 
he  to  love  and  hold  by,  to  trust  to,  and  anchor  his  life 
on?  A  crowd  of  things,  each  well  enough,  but  each 
having  a  time — and  though  they  be  beautiful  in  their 
time,  yet  fading  and  vanishing  when  it  has  elapsed. 
No  multiplication  of  times  will  make  eternity.  And  so 
with  that  thought  in  his  heart,  man  is  driven  out 
among  objects  perfectly  insufficient  to  meet  it. 

Christ  said,  'Foxes  have  holes,  and  birds  of  the  air 
have  nests,  but  the  Son  of  man  hath  not  where  to 
lay  His  head ' — and  while  the  words  have  their  proper 
and  most  pathetic  meaning  in  the  history  of  His  own 
earthly  life  of  travail  and  toil  for  our  sakes,  we  may 
also  venture  to  give  them  the  further  application,  that 
all  the  lower  creatures  are  at  rest  here,  and  that  the 
more  truly  a  man  is  man,  the  less  can  he  find,  among 
all  the  shadows  of  the  present,  a  pillow  for  his  head, 
a  place  of  repose  for  his  heart.  The  animal  nature  is 
at  home  in  the  material  world,  the  human  nature 
is  not. 

Every  other  creature  presents  the  most  accurate 
correspondence   between    nature   and   circumstances, 


V.  11]       ETERNITY  IN  THE  HEART         343 

powers  and  occupations.  Man  alone  is  like  some  poor 
land-bird  blown  out  to  sea,  and  floating  half-drowned 
with  clinging  plumage  on  an  ocean  where  the  dove 
•finds  no  rest  for  the  sole  of  her  foot,'  or  like  some 
creature  that  loves  to  glance  in  the  sunlight,  but  is 
plunged  into  the  deepest  recesses  of  a  dark  mine.  In 
the  midst  of  a  universe  marked  by  the  nicest  adapta- 
tions of  creatures  to  their  habitation,  man  alone,  the 
head  of  them  all,  presents  the  unheard-of  anomaly 
that  he  is  surrounded  by  conditions  which  do  not  fit 
his  whole  nature,  which  are  not  adequate  for  all  his 
powers,  on  which  he  cannot  feed  and  nurture  his 
whole  being.  '  To  what  purpose  is  this  waste  ? '  '  Hast 
thou  made  all  men  in  vain  ? ' 

Everything  is  'beautiful  in  its  time.'  Yes,  and  for 
that  very  reason,  as  this  Book  of  Ecclesiastes  says  in 
another  verse,  '  Because  to  every  purpose  there  is  time 
and  judgment,  therefore  the  misery  of  man  is  great 
upon  him.'  It  was  happy  when  we  loved ;  but  the  day 
of  indifference  and  alienation  and  separation  comes. 
Our  spirits  were  glad  when  we  were  planting ;  but  the 
time  for  plucking  up  that  which  was  planted  is  sure 
to  draw  near.  It  was  blessed  to  pour  out  our  souls 
in  the  effluence  of  love,  or  in  the  fullness  of  thought, 
and  the  time  to  speak  was  joyous;  but  the  dark  day 
of  silence  comes  on.  When  we  twined  hearts  and 
clasped  hands  together  it  was  glad,  and  the  time  w^hen 
we  embraced  was  blessed;  but  the  time  to  refrain 
from  embracing  is  as  sure  to  draw  near.  It  is  good 
for  the  eyes  to  behold  the  sun,  but  so  certainly  as  it 
rolls  to  its  bed  in  the  west,  and  'leaves  the  world 
to  darkness '  and  to  us,  do  all  earthly  occupations  wane 
and  fade,  and  all  possessions  shrivel  and  dwindle, 
and  all  associations  snap  and  drop  and  end,  and  thQ 


844  ECCLESIASTES  [ch.iii. 

whirligig  of  time  works  round  and  takes  away  every- 
thing which  it  once  brought  us. 

And  so  man,  with  eternity  in  his  heart,  with  the 
hunger  in  his  spirit  after  an  unchanging  whole,  an 
absolute  good,  an  ideal  perfectness,  an  immortal  being 
— is  condemned  to  the  treadmill  of  transitory  revolu- 
tion. Nothing  continueth  in  one  stay,  'For  all  that 
is  in  the  world,  the  lust  of  the  flesh,  and  the  lust  of 
the  eyes,  and  the  pride  of  life,  is  not  of  the  Father, 
but  is  of  the  world.  And  the  world  passeth  away, 
and  the  lust  thereof.'  It  is  limited,  it  is  changeful,  it 
slips  from  under  us  as  we  stand  upon  it,  and  therefore, 
mystery  and  perplexity  stoop  down  upon  the  provi- 
dence of  God,  and  misery  and  loneliness  enter  into 
the  heart  of  man.  These  changeful  things,  they  do 
not  meet  our  ideal,  they  do  not  satisfy  our  wants,  they 
do  not  last  even  our  duration. 

•The  misery  of  man  is  great  upon  him,'  said  the 
text  quoted  a  moment  ago.  And  is  it  not?  Is  this 
present  life  enough  for  you?  Sometimes  you  fancy 
it  is.  Many  of  us  habitually  act  on  the  understanding 
that  it  is,  and  treat  all  that  I  have  been  saying  about 
the  disproportion  between  our  nature  and  our  circum- 
Btances  as  not  true  about  them.  'This  world  not 
enough  for  me  I '  you  say — '  Yes !  it  is ;  only  let  me 
get  a  little  more  of  it,  and  keep  what  I  get,  and  I 
shall  be  all  right.*  So  then — '  a  little  more '  is  wanted, 
is  it?  And  that  'little  more*  will  always  be  wanted, 
and  besides  it,  the  guarantee  of  permanence  will  always 
be  wanted,  and  failing  these,  there  will  be  a  hunger 
that  nothing  can  fill  which  belongs  to  earth.  Do  you 
remember  the  bitter  experience  of  the  poor  prodigal, 
*  he  would  fain  have  filled  his  belly  with  the  husks '  ? 
He  tried  his  best  to  live  upon  the  horny,  inuutritious 


v.ll]       ETERNITY  IN  THE  HEART        345 

pods,  but  he  could  not ;  and  after  them  he  still  was 
'perishing  with  hunger.'  So  it  is  with  us  all  when 
we  try  to  fill  the  soul  and  satisfy  the  spirit  with 
earth  or  aught  that  holds  of  it.  It  is  as  impossible 
to  still  the  hunger  of  the  heart  with  that,  as  to  stay 
the  hunger  of  the  body  with  wise  sayings  or  noble 
sentiments. 

I  appeal  to  your  real  selves,  to  your  own  past  ex- 
perience. Is  it  not  true  that,  deep  below  the  surface 
contentment  with  the  world  and  the  things  of  the 
world,  a  dormant  but  slightly  slumbering  sense  of 
want  and  unsatisfied  need  lies  in  your  souls?  Is  it 
not  true  that  it  wakes  sometimes  at  a  touch;  that 
the  tender,  dying  light  of  sunset,  or  the  calm  abysses 
of  the  mighty  heavens,  or  some  strain  of  music,  or  a 
line  in  a  book,  or  a  sorrow  in  your  heart,  or  the 
solemnity  of  a  great  joy,  or  close  contact  with  sickness 
and  death,  or  the  more  direct  appeals  of  Scripture  and 
of  Christ,  stir  a  wistful  yearning  and  a  painful  sense 
of  emptiness  in  your  hearts,  and  of  insufficiency  in  all 
the  ordinary  pursuits  of  your  lives?  It  cannot  but\ 
be  so ;  for  though  it  be  true  that  our  natures  are 
in  some  measure  subdued  to  what  we  work  in,  and 
although  it  is  possible  to  atrophy  the  deepest  parts 
of  our  being  by  long  neglect  or  starvation,  yet  you  will 
never  do  that  so  thoroughly  but  that  the  deep-seated 
longing  will  break  forth  at  intervals,  and  the  cry  of 
its  hunger  echo  through  the  soul.  Many  of  us  do 
our  best  to  silence  it.  But  I,  for  my  part,  believe 
that,  however  you  have  crushed  and  hardened  your 
souls  by  indifference,  by  ambition,  by  worldly  cares, 
by  frivolous  or  coarse  pleasures,  or  by  any  of  the 
thousand  other  ways  in  which  you  can  do  it — yet  j 
Inhere  is  some  response  in  your  truest  self  to  mj  poor 


346  ECCLESIASTES  [ch.  hi. 

words  when  I  declare  that  a  soul  without  God  is  an 
empty  and  an  aching  soul ! 

These  things  which,  even  in  their  time  of  beauty, 
are  not  enough  for  a  man's  soul — have  all  but  a  time 
to  be  beautiful  in,  and  then  they  fade  and  die.  A 
great  botanist  made  what  he  called  'a  floral  clock' 
to  mark  the  hours  of  the  day  by  the  opening  and 
closing  of  flowers.  It  was  a  graceful  and  yet  a  pathetic 
thought.  One  after  another  they  spread  their  petals, 
and  their  varying  colours  glow  in  the  light.  But  one 
after  another  they  wearily  shut  their  cups,  and  the 
night  falls,  and  the  latest  of  them  folds  itself  together, 
and  all  are  hidden  away  in  the  dark.  So  our  joys 
and  treasures,  were  they  sufficient  did  they  last,  cannot 
last.  After  a  summer's  day  comes  a  summer's  night, 
and  after  a  brief  space  of  them  comes  winter,  when 
all  are  killed  and  the  leafless  trees  stand  silent, 

'Bare,  ruined  choirs,  where  late  the  sweet  birds  sang.' 

We  cleave  to  these  temporal  possessions  and  joys, 
and  the  natural  law  of  change  sweeps  them  away 
from  us  one  by  one.  Most  of  them  do  not  last  so 
long  as  we  do,  and  they  pain  us  when  they  pass  away 
from  us.  Some  of  them  last  longer  than  we  do,  and 
they  pain  us  when  we  pass  away  from  them.  Either 
way  our  hold  of  them  is  a  transient  hold,  and  one 
knows  not  whether  is  the  sadder — the  bare  garden 
beds  where  all  have  done  blowing,  and  nothing  remains 
but  a  tangle  of  decay,  or  the  blooming  beauty  from 
which  a  man  is  summoned  away,  leaving  others  to 
reap  what  he  has  sown.  Tragic  enough  are  both  at 
the  best — and  certain  to  befall  us  all.  We  live  and 
they  fade;  we  die  and  they  remain.  We  live  again 
and  they  are  far  away.    The  facts  are  so.    We  may 


v.ll]       ETERNITY  IN  THE  HEART        347 

make  them  a  joy  or  a  sorrow  as  we  will.  Transiency- 
is  stamped  on  all  our  possessions,  occupations,  and 
delights.  We  have  the  hunger  for  eternity  in  our 
souls,  the  thought  of  eternity  in  our  hearts,  the  destina- 
tion for  eternity  written  on  our  inmost  being,  and  the 
need  to  ally  ourselves  with  eternity  proclaimed  even 
by  the  most  short-lived  trifles  of  time.  Either  these 
things  will  be  the  blessing  or  the  curse  of  our  lives. 
Which  do  you  mean  that  they  shall  be  for  you  ? 

III.  These  thoughts  lead  us  to  consider  the  possible 
satisfying  of  our  souls. 

This  Book  of  Ecclesiastes  is  rather  meant  to  enforce 
the  truth  of  the  weariness  and  emptiness  of  a  godless 
life,  than  of  the  blessedness  of  a  godly  one.  It  is  the 
record  of  the  struggles  of  a  soul — '  the  confessions  of  an 
inquiring  spirit' — feeling  and  fighting  its  way  through 
many  errors,  and  many  partial  and  unsatisfactory 
solutions  of  the  great  problem  of  life,  till  he  reaches 
the  one  in  which  he  can  rest.  When  he  has  touched 
that  goal  his  work  is  done.  And  so  the  devious  way 
is  told  in  the  book  at  full  length,  while  a  sentence 
sets  forth  the  conclusion  to  which  he  was  working, 
even  when  he  was  most  bewildered.  '  The  conclusion 
of  the  whole  matter '  is  *  Fear  God  and  keep  His  com- 
mandments.' That  is  all  that  a  man  needs.  It  is  '  the 
whole  of  man.'  'All  is'  not  'vanity  and  vexation  of 
spirit'  then — but  'all  things  work  together  for  good 
to  them  that  love  God.' 

The  Preacher  in  his  day  learned  that  it  was  possible 
to  satisfy  the  hunger  for  eternity,  which  had  once 
seemed  to  him  a  questionable  blessing.    He  learned, 
that  it  was  a  loving  Providence  which  had  made  man's  \ 
home  so  little  fit  for  him,  that  he  might  seek  the  '  city 
which  hath  foundations.'    He  learned  that  all  the  pain 


348  ECCLESIASTES  [oh.  m. 

of  passing  beauty,  and  the  fading  flowers  of  man's 
goodliness,  were  capable  of  being  turned  into  a  solemn 
joy.  Standing  at  the  centre,  he  saw  order  instead  of 
chaos,  and  when  he  had  come  back,  after  all  his  search, 
to  the  old  simple  faith  of  peasants  and  children  in 
Judah,  to  fear  God  and  keep  His  commandments,  he 
understood  why  God  had  set  eternity  in  man's  heart, 
and  then  flung  him  out,  as  if  in  mockery,  amidst  the 
stormy  waves  of  the  changeful  ocean  of  time. 

And  we,  who  have  a  further  word  from  God,  may 
have  a  fuller  and  yet  more  blessed  conviction,  built 
upon  our  own  happy  experience,  if  we  choose,  that 
it  is  possible  for  us  to  have  that  deep  thirst  slaked, 
that  longing  appeased.  We  have  Christ  to  trust  to 
and  to  love.  He  has  given  Himself  for  us  that  all  our 
many  sins  against  the  eternal  love  and  our  guilty 
squandering  of  our  hearts  upon  transitory  treasures 
may  be  forgiven.  He  has  come  amongst  us,  the  Word 
in  human  flesh,  that  our  poor  eyes  may  see  the  Eternal 
walking  amidst  the  things  of  time  and  sense,  and  may 
discern  a  beauty  in  Him  beyond  •  whatsoever  things 
are  lovely.'  He  has  come  that  we  through  Him  may 
lay  hold  on  God,  even  as  in  Him  God  lays  hold  on  us. 
As  in  mysterious  and  transcendent  union  the  divine 
takes  into  itself  the  human  in  that  person  of  Jesus, 
and  Eternity  is  blended  with  Time ;  we,  trusting  Him 
and  yielding  our  hearts  to  Him,  receive  into  our  poor 
lives  an  incorruptible  seed,  and  for  us  the  soul-satisfy- 
ing realities  that  abide  for  ever  mingle  with  and  are 
reached  through  the  shadows  that  pass  away. 

Brethren,  yield  yourselves  to  Him!  In  conscious 
unworthiness,  in  lowly  penitence,  let  us  cast  ourselves 
on  Jesus  Christ,  our  Sacrifice,  for  pardon  and  peace  I 
Trust  Him  and  love  Him  1    Live  by  Him  and  for  Him ! 


T.  11]       ETERNITY  IN  THE  HEART        349 

And  then,  the  loftiest  thoughts  of  our  hearts,  as  they 
seek  after  absolute  perfection  and  changeless  love, 
■hall  be  more  than  fulfilled  in  Him  who  is  more  than 
all  that  man  ever  dreamed,  because  He  is  the  perfec- 
tion of  man,  and  the  Son  of  God. 

Love  Christ  and  live  in  Him,  taking  Him  for  the 
motive,  the  spring,  and  the  very  atmosphere  of  your 
livea,  and  then  no  capacities  will  languish  for  lack  of 
either  stimulus  or  field,  and  no  weariness  will  come 
over  you,  as  if  you  were  a  stranger  from  your  home. 
For  if  Christ  be  near  us,  all  things  go  well  with  us.  If 
w«  live  for  Him,  the  power  of  that  motive  will  make 
all  our  nature  blossom  like  the  vernal  woods,  and  dry 
branches  break  into  leafage.  If  we  dwell  in  Him,  we 
shall  be  at  home  wherever  we  are,  like  the  patriarch 
who  pitched  his  tent  in  many  lands,  but  alw^  vs  had 
the  same  tent  wherever  he  went.  So  we  shtill  have 
the  one  abode,  though  its  place  in  the  desert  may 
vary — and  we  ihall  not  need  to  care  whether  the 
encampment  be  beneath  the  palm-trees  and  beside 
the  wells  of  Elim,  or  amidst  the  drought  of  Marah, 
so  long  as  the  same  covering  protects  us,  and  the  same 
pillar  of  fire  burns  above  us. 

Love  Christ,  and  then  the  eternity  in  the  heart  will 
not  be  a  great  aching  void,  but  will  be  filled  with 
the  everlasting  life  which  Christ  gives,  and  is.  The 
vicissitude  will  really  become  the  source  of  freshness 
and  progress  which  God  meant  it  to  be.  Everything 
which,  when  made  our  all-sufficient  portion,  becomes 
stale  and  unprofitable,  even  in  its  time,  will  be 
apparelled  in  celestial  light.  It  shall  all  be  lovely 
and  pleasant  while  it  lasts,  and  its  beauty  will  not 
be  saddened  by  the  certainty  of  its  decay,  nor  its 
empty  place  a  pain  when  it  has  passed  away. 


350  ECCLESIASTES  [oh.  v. 

Take  Christ  for  Saviour  and  Friend,  your  Guide  and 
Support  through  time,  and  Himself  your  Eternity  and 
Joy,  then  all  discords  are  reconciled — and  'all  things 
are  yours — whether  the  world,  or  life,  or  death,  or 
things  present,  or  things  to  come;  all  are  yours,  and 
ye  are  Christ's,  and  Christ  is  God's.' 


LESSONS  FOR  WORSHIP  AND  FOR  WORK 

•Keep  thy  foot  when  then  goest  to  the  house  of  God,  and  be  more  ready  to  hear, 
than  to  give  the  sacrifice  of  fools:  for  they  consider  not  that  they  do  evil.  2.  Be 
not  rash  with  thy  month,  and  let  not  thine  heart  be  hasty  to  utter  any  thing  before 
God  :  for  God  is  in  heaven,  and  thou  upon  earth ;  therefore  let  thy  words  be  few. 
3.  For  a  dream  cometh  through  the  multitude  of  business ;  and  a  fool's  voice  is 
known  by  multitude  of  words.  4.  When  thou  vowest  a  vow  unto  God,  defer  not 
to  pay  it ;  for  He  hath  no  pleasure  in  fools :  pay  that  which  thou  hast  vowed. 
6.  Better  is  it  that  thou  shouldest  not  vow,  than  that  thou  shouldest  vow  and  not 
pay.  6.  Suffer  not  thy  mouth  to  cause  thy  flesh  to  sin  ;  neither  say  thou  before 
the  angel,  that  it  was  an  error :  wherefore  should  God  be  angry  at  thy  voice,  and 
destroy  the  work  of  thine  hands  ?  7.  For  in  the  multitude  of  dreams  and  many 
words  there  are  also  divers  vanities :  but  fear  thou  God.  8.  If  thou  seest  the 
oppression  of  the  poor,  and  violent  perverting  of  judgment  and  justice  in  a  pro- 
vince, marvel  not  at  the  matter :  for  he  that  is  higher  than  the  highest  rcgardeth  ; 
and  there  be  higher  than  they.  9.  Moreover,  the  profit  of  the  earth  is  for  all :  the 
king  himself  is  served  by  the  field.  10.  He  that  loveth  silver  shall  not  be  satisfied 
with  silver ;  nor  he  that  loveth  abundance  with  increase.  This  is  also  vanity.  11. 
When  goods  increase,  they  are  increased  that  eat  them :  and  what  good  is  there 
to  the  owners  thereof,  saving  the  beholding  of  them  with  their  eyes  ?  12.  The 
sleep  of  a  labouring  man  is  sweet,  whether  he  eat  little  or  much :  but  the  abun- 
dance of  the  rich  will  not  suffer  him  to  sleep.'— Ecclbs.  t.  1-12. 

This  passage  is  composed  of  two  or  perhaps  three 
apparently  disconnected  sections.  The  faults  in  worship 
referred  to  in  verses  1-7  have  nothing  to  do  with  the 
legalised  robbery  of  verse  8,  nor  has  the  demonstration 
of  the  folly  of  covetousness  in  verses  10-12  any  connec- 
tion with  either  of  the  preceding  subjects.  But  they  are 
brought  into  unity,  if  they  are  taken  as  applications 
in  different  directions  of  the  bitter  truth  which  the 
writer  sets  himself  to  prove  runs  through  all  life.  '  All 
is  vanity.'  That  principle  may  even  be  exemplified  in 
worship,  and  the   obscure  verse  7  which   closes  the 


vs.  1-12]        WORSHIP  AND  WORK  851 

section  about  the  faults  of  worship  seems  to  be  equi- 
valent to  the  more  familiar  close  which  rings  the  knell 
of  so  many  of  men's  pursuits  in  this  book, '  This  also  is 
vanity.'    It  stands  in  the  usual  form  in  verse  10. 

We  have  in  verses  1-7  a  warning  against  the  faults 
in  worship  which  make  even  it  to  be  *  vanity,'  unreal 
and  empty  and  fruitless.  These  are  of  three  sorts, 
arranged,  as  it  were,  chronologically.  The  worshipper 
is  first  regarded  as  going  to  the  house  of  God,  then  as 
presenting  his  prayers  in  it,  and  then  as  having  left 
it  and  returned  to  his  ordinary  life.  The  writer  has 
cautions  to  give  concerning  conduct  before,  during, 
and  after  public  worship. 

Note  that,  in  all  three  parts  of  his  warnings,  his 
favourite  word  of  condemnation  appears  as  describing 
the  vain  worship  to  which  he  opposes  the  right 
manner.  They  who  fall  into  the  faults  condemned 
are  'fools.'  If  that  class  includes  all  who  mar  their 
worship  by  such  errors,  the  church  which  holds  them 
had  need  to  be  of  huge  dimensions ;  for  the  faults  held 
up  in  these  ancient  words  flourish  in  full  luxuriance 
to-day,  and  seem  to  haunt  long-established  Christianity 
quite  as  mischievously  as  they  did  long -established 
Judaism.  If  we  could  banish  them  from  our  religious 
assemblies,  there  would  be  fewer  complaints  of  the 
poor  results  of  so  much  apparently  Christian  prayer 
and  preaching. 

Fruitful  and  acceptable  worship  begins  before  it 
begins.  So  our  passage  commences  with  the  demeanour 
of  the  worshipper  on  his  way  to  the  house  of  God. 
He  is  to  keep  his  foot;  that  is,  to  go  deliberately, 
thoughtfully,  with  realisation  of  what  he  is  about  to  do. 
He  is  to  'draw  near  to  hear'  and  to  bethink  himself, 
while  drawing  near,  of  what  his  purpose  should  be. 


352  ECCLESIASTES  [oh.  v. 

Our  forefathers'  Sunday  began  on  Saturday  night,  and 
partly  for  that  reason  the  hallowing  influence  of  it 
ran  over  into  Monday,  at  all  events.  What  likeli- 
hood is  there  that  much  good  will  come  of  worship 
to  people  who  talk  politics  or  scandal  right  up  to  the 
church  door?  Is  reading  newspapers  in  the  pews, 
which  they  tell  us  in  England  is  not  unknown  in 
America,  a  good  preparation  for  worshipping  God? 
The  heaviest  rain  runs  off  parched  ground,  unless  it 
has  been  first  softened  by  a  gentle  fall  of  moisture. 
Hearts  that  have  no  dew  of  previous  meditation  to 
make  them  receptive  are  not  likely  to  drink  in  much 
of  the  showers  of  blessing  which  may  be  falling  round 
them.  The  formal  worshipper  who  goes  to  the  house 
of  God  because  it  is  the  hour  when  he  has  always  gone ; 
the  curious  worshipper  (?)  who  draws  near  to  hear 
indeed,  but  to  hear  a  man,  not  God ;  and  all  the  other 
sorts  of  mere  outward  worshippers  who  make  so  large 
a  proportion  of  every  Christian  congregation — get  the 
lesson  they  need,  to  begin  with,  in  this  precept. 

Note,  that  right  preparation  for  worship  is  better 
than  worship  itself,  if  it  is  that  of  'fools.'  Drawing 
near  with  the  true  purpose  is  better  than  being  near 
with  the  wrong  one.  Note,  too,  the  reason  for  the 
vanity  of  the  '  sacrifice  of  fools '  is  that  *  they  know  not ' ; 
and  why  do  they  not  know,  but  because  they  did  not 
draw  near  with  the  purpose  of  hearing  ?  Therefore,  as 
the  last  clause  of  the  verse  says,  rightly  rendered,  *  they 
do  evil.'  All  hangs  together.  No  matter  how  much  we 
frequent  the  house  of  God,  if  we  go  with  unprepared 
minds  and  hearts  we  shall  remain  ignorant,  and  be- 
cause we  are  so,  our  sacrifices  will  be  '  evil.'  If  the 
winnowing  fan  of  this  principle  were  applied  to  our 
decorous   congregations,  who  dress    their  bodies   for 


vs.  1-12]       WORSHIP  AND  WORK  858 

church  much  more  carefully  than  they  do  their  souls, 
what  a  cloud  of  chaff  would  fly  off ! 

Then  comes  the  direction  for  conduct  in  the  act  of 
worship.  The  same  thoughtf ulness  which  kept  the  foot 
in  coming  to,  should  keep  the  heart  when  in,  the  house 
of  God.  His  exaltation  and  our  lowliness  should  check 
hasty  words,  blurting  out  uppermost  wishes,  or  in  any 
way  outrunning  the  sentiments  and  emotions  of  pre- 
pared hearts.  Not  that  the  lesson  would  check  the 
fervid  flow  of  real  desire.  There  is  a  type  of  calm 
worship  which  keeps  itself  calm  because  it  is  cold. 
Propriety  and  sobriety  are  its  watchwords — both  ad- 
mirable things,  and  both  dear  to  tepid  Christians. 
Other  people  besides  the  crowds  on  Pentecost  think 
that  men  whose  lips  are  fired  by  the  Spirit  of  God 
are  '  drunken,'  if  not  with  wine,  at  all  events  with  un- 
wholesome enthusiasm.  But  the  outpourings  of  a  soul 
filled,  not  only  with  the  sense  that  God  is  in  heaven 
and  we  on  earth,  but  also  with  the  assurance  that  He 
is  near  to  it^^  and  it  to  Him,  are  not  rash  and  hasty, 
however  fervid.  What  is  condemned  is  words  which 
travel  faster  than  thoughts  or  feelings,  or  which  pro- 
ceed from  hearts  that  have  not  been  brought  into 
patient  submission,  or  from  such  as  lack  reverent 
realisation  of  God's  majesty ;  and  such  faults  may  attach 
to  the  most  calm  worship,  and  need  not  infect  the  most 
fervent.  Those  prayers  are  not  hasty  which  keep  step 
with  the  suppliant's  desires,  when  these  take  the  time 
from  God's  promises.  That  mouth  is  not  rash  which 
waits  to  speak  until  the  ear  has  heard. 

'Let  thy  words  be  few.'  The  heathen  'think  that 
they  shall  be  heard  for  much  speaking.'  It  needs  not 
to  tell  our  wants  in  many  words  to  One  who  knows 
them  altogether,  any  more  than  a  child  needs  many 

z 


354  ECCLESIASTES  [ch.  v. 

when  speaking  to  a  father  or  mother.  But '  few '  must 
be  measured  by  the  number  of  needs  and  desires.  The 
shortest  prayer,  which  is  not  animated  by  a  conscious- 
ness of  need  and  a  throb  of  desire,  is  too  long;  the 
longest,  which  is  vitalised  by  these,  is  short  enough. 
What  becomes  of  the  enormous  percentage  of  public 
and  private  prayers,  which  are  mere  repetitions,  said 
because  they  are  the  right  thing  to  say,  because  every- 
body always  has  said  them,  and  not  because  the  man 
praying  really  wants  the  things  he  asks  for,  or  expects 
to  get  them  any  the  more  for  asking  ? 

Verse  3  gives  a  reason  for  the  exhortation, '  A  dream 
comes  through  a  multitude  of  business ' — when  a  man 
is  much  occupied  with  any  matter,  it  is  apt  to  haunt 
his  sleeping  as  well  as  his  waking  thoughts.  '  A  fool's 
voice  comes  through  a  multitude  of  words.'  The  dream 
is  the  consequence  of  the  pressure  of  business,  but  the 
fool's  voice  is  the  cause,  not  the  consequence,  of  the 
gush  of  words.  What,  then,  is  the  meaning  ?  Probably 
that  such  a  gush  of  words  turns,  as  it  were,  the  voice 
of  the  utterer,  for  the  time  being,  into  that  of  a  fool. 
Voluble  prayers,  more  abundant  than  devout  senti- 
ments or  emotions,  make  the  offerer  as  a  'fool'  and 
his  prayer  unacceptable. 

The  third  direction  refers  to  conduct  after  worship. 
It  lays  down  the  general  principle  that  vows  should 
be  paid,  and  that  swiftly.  A  keen  insight  into  human 
nature  suggests  the  importance  of  prompt  fulfilment 
of  the  vows;  for  in  carrying  out  resolutions  formed 
under  the  impulse  of  the  sanctuary,  even  more  than 
in  other  departments,  delays  are  dangerous.  Many  a 
young  heart  touched  by  the  truth  has  resolved  to  live 
a  Christian  life,  and  has  gone  out  from  the  house  of 
God  and  put  off  and  put  off  till  days  have  thickened 


vs.  1-12]       WORSHIP  AND  WORK  355 

into  months  and  years,  and  the  intention  has  remained 
unfulfilled  for  ever.  Nothing  hardens  hearts,  stiffens 
wills,  and  sears  consciences  so  much  as  to  be  brought 
to  the  point  of  melting,  and  then  to  cool  down  into 
the  old  shape.  All  good  resolutions  and  spiritual 
convictions  may  be  included  under  the  namie  of  vows ; 
and  of  all  it  is  true  that  it  is  better  not  to  have 
formed  them,  than  to  have  formed  and  not  performed 
them. 

Verses  6  and  7  are  obscure.  The  former  seems  to 
refer  to  the  case  of  a  man  who  vows  and  then  asks 
that  he  may  be  absolved  from  his  vow  by  the  priest 
or  other  ecclesiastical  authority.  His  mouth — that  is, 
his  spoken  promise — leads  him  into  sin,  if  he  does  not 
fulfil  it  (comp.  Deut.  xxiii.  21,  22).  He  asks  release  from 
his  promise  on  the  ground  that  it  is  a  sin  of  weakness. 
The  '  angel '  is  best  understood  as  the  priest  (messenger), 
as  in  Malachi  ii.  7.  Such  a  wriggling  out  of  a  vow  will 
bring  God's  anger ;  for  the  'voice '  which  promised  what 
the  hand  will  not  perform,  sins. 

Verse  7  is  variously  rendered.  The  Revised  Version 
supplies  at  the  beginning,  '  This  comes  to  pass,'  and 
goes  on  '  through  the  multitude  of  dreams  and  vanities 
and  many  words.'  But  this  scarcely  bears  upon  the 
context,  which  requires  here  a  reason  against  rash 
speech  and  vows.  The  meaning  seems  better  given, 
either  by  the  rearranged  text  which  Delitzsch  sug- 
gests, '  In  many  dreams  and  many  words  there  are  also 
many  vanities'  (so,  substantially,  the  Auth.  Ver.),  or 
as  Wright,  following  Hitzig,  etc.,  has  it,  '  In  the  multi- 
tude of  dreams  are  also  vanities,  and  [in]  many  words 
[as  well].'  The  simile  of  verse  3  is  recurred  to,  and  the 
whirling  visions  of  unsubstantial  dreams  are  likened 
to  the  rash  words  of  voluble  prayers  in  that  both  are 


356  ECCLESIASTES  [ch.v. 

vanity.  Thus  the  writer  reaches  his  favourite  thought, 
and  shows  how  vanity  infects  even  devotion.  The 
closing  injunction  to  '  fear  God '  sets  in  sharp  contrast 
with  faulty  outward  worship  the  inner  surrender  and 
devotion,  which  will  protect  against  such  empty 
hypocrisy.  If  the  heart  is  right,  the  lips  will  not  be 
far  wrong. 

Verses  8  and  9  have  no  direct  connection  with  the 
preceding,  and  their  connection  with  the  following 
(vs.  10-12)  is  slight.  Their  meaning  is  dubious.  Ac- 
cording to  the  prevailing  view  now,  the  abuses  of 
government  in  verse  8  are  those  of  the  period  of  the 
writer ;  and  the  last  clauses  do  not,  as  might  appear  at 
first  reading,  console  sufferers  by  the  thought  that 
God  is  above  rapacious  dignitaries,  but  bids  the  readers 
not  be  surprised  if  small  officials  plunder,  since  the 
same  corruption  goes  upwards  through  all  grades  of 
functionaries.  With  such  rotten  condition  of  things 
is  contrasted,  in  verse  9,  the  happy  state  of  a  people 
living  under  a  patriarchal  government,  where  the  king 
draws  his  revenues,  not  from  oppression,  but  from 
agriculture.  The  Revised  Version  gives  in  its  margin 
this  rendering.  The  connection  of  these  verses  with  the 
following  may  be  that  they  teach  the  vanity  of  riches 
under  such  a  state  of  society  as  they  describe.  What 
is  the  use  of  scraping  wealth  together  when  hungry 
officials  are  'watching*  to  pounce  on  it?  How  much 
better  to  be  contented  with  the  modest  prosperity  of 
a  quiet  country  life !  If  the  translation  of  verse  9  in 
the  Authorised  Version  and  the  Revised  Version  is 
retained,  there  is  a  striking  contrast  between  the 
rapine  of  the  city,  where  men  live  by  preying  on  each 
other  (as  they  do  still  to  a  large  extent,  for  •com- 
merce' is  often  nothing  better),  and  the  wholesomo 


Ts.1-12]         WORSHIP  AND  WORK  857 

natural  life  of  the  country,  where  the  kindly  earth 
yields  fruit,  a*id  one  man's  gain  is  not  another's  loss. 

Thus  the  verses  may  be  connected  with  the  wise  de- 
preciation of  money  which  follows.  That  low  estimate 
is  based  on  three  grounds,  which  great  trading  nations 
like  England  and  the  United  States  need  to  have  dinned 
into  their  ears.  First,  no  man  ever  gets  enough  of 
worldly  wealth.  The  appetite  grows  faster  than  the 
balance  at  the  banker's.  That  is  so  because  the  desire 
that  is  turned  to  outward  wealth  really  needs  some- 
thing else,  and  has  mistaken  its  object.  God,  not  money 
or  money's  worth,  is  the  satisfying  possession.  It  is 
so  because  all  appetites,  fed  on  earthly  things,  increase 
by  gratification,  and  demand  ever  larger  draughts. 
The  jaded  palate  needs  stronger  stimulants.  The 
seasoned  opium-eater  has  to  increase  his  doses  to 
produce  the  same  effects.  Second,  the  race  after  riches 
is  a  race  after  a  phantom,  because  the  more  one  has 
of  them  the  more  people  there  spring  up  to  share 
them.  The  poor  man  does  with  one  servant;  the 
rich  man  has  fifty ;  and  his  own  portion  of  his  wealth 
is  a  very  small  item.  His  own  naeal  is  but  a  small 
slice  off  the  immense  provisions  for  which  he  has  the 
trouble  of  paying.  It  is  so,  thirdly,  because  in  the 
chase  he  deranges  his  physical  nature;  and  when  he 
has  got  his  wealth,  it  only  keeps  him  awake  at  night 
thinking  how  he  shall  guard  it  and  keep  it  safe. 

That  which  costs  so  much  to  get,  which  has  so  little 
power  to  satisfy,  which  must  always  be  less  than  the 
wish  of  the  covetous  man,  which  costs  so  much  to 
keep,  which  stuffs  pillows  with  thorns,  is  surely  vanity. 
Honest  work  is  rewarded  by  sweet  sleep.  The  old 
legend  told  of  unslumbering  guards  who  kept  the 
treasure  of  the  golden  fruit.    The  millionaire  has  to 


358  ECCLESIASTES  [ch.v. 

live  in  a  barred  house,  and  to  be  always  on  the  lookout 
lest  some  combination  of  speculators  should  pull  down 
his  stocks,  or  some  change  in  the  current  of  population 
should  make  his  city  lots  worthless.  Black  care  rides 
behind  the  successful  man  of  business.  Better  to  have 
done  a  day's  work  which  has  earned  a  night's  repose 
than  to  be  t.he  slave  of  one's  wealth,  as  all  men  are 
who  make  it  their  aim  and  their  supreme  good.  Would 
that  these  lessons  were  printed  deep  on  the  hearts  of 
young  Englishmen  and  Americans  I 


NAKED   OR  CLOTHED? 

'As  he  came  forth  of  his  mother's  worah,  naked  shall  he  return  to  go  as  he 
came,  and  shall  take  nothing  of  his  lahour,  which  he  may  carry  away  in  his 
hand.'— EccLES.  v.  15. 

' .  .  .  Their  works  do  follow  them.'— Rev.  xiv.  13. 

It  is  to  be  observed  that  these  two  sharply  contrasted 
texts  do  not  refer  to  the  same  persons.  The  former  is 
spoken  of  a  rich  worldling,  the  latter  of  '  the  dead  who 
die  in  the  Lord.'  The  unrelieved  gloom  of  the  one  is 
as  a  dark  background  against  which  the  triumphant 
assurance  of  the  other  shines  out  the  more  brightly, 
and  deepens  the  gloom  which  heightens  it.  The  end 
of  the  man  who  has  to  go  away  from  earth  naked  and 
empty-handed  acquires  new  tragic  force  when  set 
against  the  lot  of  those  '  whose  works  do  follow  them.' 
Well-worn  and  commonplace  as  both  sets  of  thought 
may  be,  they  may  perhaps  be  flashed  up  into  new 
vividness  by  juxtaposition ;  and  if  in  this  sermon  we 
have  nothing  new  to  say,  old  truth  is  not  out  of  place 
till  it  has  been  wrought  into  and  influenced  our  daily 
practice.  We  shall  best  gather  the  lessons  of  our  text 
if  we  consider  what  we  must  leave,  what  we  must 
take,  and  what  we  may  take. 


T.15]  NAKED  OR  CLOTHED?  859 

I.  What  we  must  leave. 

The  Preacher  in  the  context  presses  home  a  formid- 
able array  of  the  limitations  and  insufficiencies  of 
wealth.  Possessed,  it  cannot  satisfy,  for  the  appetite 
grows  with  indulgence.  Its  increase  barely  keeps  pace 
with  the  increase  of  its  consumers.  It  contributes 
nothing  to  the  advantage  of  its  so-called  owner  except 
'  the  beholding  of  it  with  his  eyes,'  and  the  need  of 
watching  it  keeps  them  open  when  he  would  fain 
sleep.  It  is  often  kept  to  the  owner's  hurt,  it  often 
disappears  in  unfortunate  speculation,  and  the  pos- 
sessor's heirs  are  paupers.  But,  even  if  all  these  possi- 
bilities are  safely  weathered,  the  man  has  to  die  and 
leave  it  all  behind.  'He  shall  take  nothing  of  his 
labour  which  he  can  carry  away  in  his  hand ' ;  that  is 
to  say,  death  separates  from  all  with  whom  the  life  of 
the  body  brings  us  into  connection.  The  things  which 
are  no  parts  of  our  true  selves  are  ours  in  a  very 
modified  sense  even  whilst  we  seem  to  possess  them,  and 
the  term  of  possession  has  a  definite  close.  '  Shrouds 
have  no  pockets,'  as  the  stern  old  proverb  says.  How 
many  men  have  lived  in  the  houses  which  we  call  ours, 
sat  on  our  seats,  walked  over  our  lands,  carried  in  their 
purses  the  money  that  is  in  ours !  Is  '  the  game  worth 
the  candle '  when  we  give  our  labour  for  so  imperfect 
and  brief  a  possession  as  at  the  fullest  and  the  longest 
we  enjoy  of  all  earthly  good  ?  Surely  a  wise  man  will 
set  little  store  by  possessions  of  all  which  a  cold,  irre- 
sistible hand  will  come  to  strip  him.  Surely  the  life 
is  wasted  which  spends  its  energy  in  robing  itself  in 
garments  which  will  all  be  stripped  from  it  when  the 
naked  self/  returns  to  go  as  he  came.' 

But  there  are  other  things  than  these  earthly  pos- 
sessions from  which  death  separates  us.     It  carries  us 


860  ECCLESIASTES  [ch.  v. 

far  away  from  the  sound  of  human  voices  and  isolates 
us  from  living  men.  Honour  and  reputation  cease  to 
be  audible.  When  a  prominent  man  dies,  what  a 
clatter  of  conflicting  judgments  contends  over  his 
grave  !  and  how  utterly  he  is  beyond  them  all !  Praise 
or  blame,  blessing  or  banning  are  equally  powerless  to 
reach  the  unhearing  ear  or  to  agitate  the  unbeating 
heart.  And  when  one  of  our  small  selves  passes  out  of 
life,  we  hear  no  more  the  voice  of  censure  or  of  praise, 
of  love  or  of  hate.  Is  it  worth  while  to  toil  for  the 
•  hollow  wraith  of  dying  fame,'  or  even  for  the  clasp  of 
loving  hands  which  have  to  be  loosened  so  surely  and 
so  soon  ? 

Then  again,  there  are  other  things  which  must  be  left 
behind  as  belonging  only  to  the  present  order,  and 
connected  with  bodily  life.  There  will  be  no  scope  for 
material  work,  and  much  of  all  our  knowledge  will  be 
antiquated  when  the  light  beyond  shines  in.  As  we 
shall  have  occasion  to  see  presently,  there  is  a  per- 
manent element  in  the  most  material  work,  and  if  in 
handling  the  transient  we  have  been  living  for  the 
eternal,  such  work  will  abide ;  but  if  we  think  of  the 
spirit  in  which  a  sad  majority  do  their  daily  tasks, 
whether  of  a  more  material  or  of  a  more  intellectual 
sort,  we  must  recognise  that  a  very  large  proportion 
of  all  the  business  of  life  must  come  to  an  end  here. 
There  is  nothing  in  it  that  will  stand  the  voyage 
across  the  great  deep,  or  that  can  survive  in  the  order 
of  things  to  which  we  go.  What  is  a  man  to  do  in 
another  world,  supposing  there  is  another  world, 
where  ledgers  and  mills  are  out  of  date?  Or  what 
has  a  scholar  or  scientist  to  do  in  a  state  of  things 
where  there  is  no  place  for  dictionaries  and  grammars, 
for  acute  criticism,  or  for  a  careful  scientific  research  ? 


V.  16]  NAKED  OR  CLOTHED  ?  861 

Physical  science,  linguistic  knowledge,  political  wisdom, 
will  be  antiquated.  The  poetry  which  glorifies  afresh 
dud  interprets  the  present  will  have  lost  its  meaning. 
Half  the  problems  that  torture  us  here  will  cease  to 
have  existence,  and  most  of  the  other  half  will  have 
been  solved  by  simple  change  of  position.  '  Whether 
there  be  tongues,  they  shall  cease ;  whether  there  be 
knowledge,  it  shall  vanish  away';  and  it  becomes  us 
all  to  bethink  ourselves  whether  there  is  anything  in 
our  lives  that  we  can  carry  away  when  all  that  is  *  of 
the  earth  earthy '  has  sunk  into  nothingness. 

II.  What  we  must  take. 

We  must  take  ourselves.  It  is  the  same  'he*  who 
goes  'naked  as  he  came';  it  is  the  same  'he'  who 
'  came  from  his  mother's  womb,'  and  is  *  born  again  *  as 
it  were  into  a  new  life,  only  '  he '  has  by  his  earthly  life 
been  developed  and  revealed.  The  plant  has  flowered 
and  fruited.  What  was  mere  potentiality  has  become 
fact.  There  is  now  fixed  character.  The  transient 
possessions,  relationships,  and  occupations  of  the 
earthly  life  are  gone,  but  the  man  that  they  have 
made  is  there.  And  in  the  character  there  are  pre- 
dominant habits  which  insist  upon  having  their  sway, 
and  a  memory  of  which,  as  we  may  believe,  there  is 
written  indelibly  all  the  past.  Whatever  death  may 
strip  from  us,  there  is  no  reason  to  suppose  that  it 
touches  the  consciousness  and  personal  identity,  or  the 
prevailing  set  and  inclination  of  our  characters.  And 
if  we  do  indeed  pass  into  another  life  '  not  in  entire 
f  orgetf  ulness,  and  not  in  utter  nakedness,'  but  carrying 
a  perfected  memory  and  clothed  in  a  garment  woven 
of  all  our  past  actions,  there  needs  no  more  to  bring 
about  a  solemn  and  continuous  act  of  judgment. 

III.  What  we  may  take. 


362  ECCLESIASTES  [ch.v. 

'  Their  works  do  follow  them.'  These  are  the  words 
of  the  Spirit  concerning  'the  dead  who  die  in  the 
Lord.'  We  need  not  fear  marring  the  great  truth  that 
*  not  by  works  of  righteousness  but  by  His  mercy  He 
saved  us,'  if  we  firmly  grasp  the  large  assurance  which 
this  text  blessedly  contains.  A  Christian  man's  works 
are  perpetual  in  the  measure  in  which  they  harmonise 
with  the  divine  will,  in  the  measure  they  have  eternal 
consequences  in  himself  whatever  they  may  have  on 
others.  If  we  live  opening  our  minds  and  hearts  to 
the  influx  of  the  divine  power  'that  worketh  in  us 
both  to  will  and  to  do  of  His  good  pleasure,'  then  we 
may  be  humbly  sure  that  these  'works'  are  eternal; 
and  though  they  will  never  constitute  the  ground  of 
our  acceptance,  they  will  never  fail  to  secure  '  a  great 
recompence  of  reward.'  To  many  a  humble  saint  there 
will  be  a  moment  of  wondering  thankfulness  when  he 
sees  these  his  '  children  whom  God  hath  given  him ' 
clustered  round  him,  and  has  to  say,  '  Lord,  when  saw 
I  Thee  naked,  or  in  prison,  and  visited  Thee  ? '  There 
will  be  many  an  apocalypse  of  grateful  surprise  in  the 
revelations  of  the  heavens.  We  remember  Milton's 
noble  explanation  of  these  great  words  which  may 
well  silence  our  feeble  attempts  to  enforce  them — 

•  Thy  works  and  alms  and  all  thy  good  endeavour 
Stood  not  behind,  nor  in  the  grave  were  trod, 
But  as  faith  pointed  with  her  golden  rod, 
Followed  them  up  to  joy  and  bliss  for  ever.' 

So  then,  life  here  and  yonder  will  for  the  Christian 
soul  be  one  continuous  whole,  only  that  there,  while 
'their  works  do  follow  them,'  'they  rest  from  their 
labours.' 


FINIS  ^ORONAT  OPUS 

'Better  is  the  end  of  a  thing  than  the  beginning.'— Ecolbs.  Tii.  8. 

This  Book  of  Ecclesiastes  is  the  record  of  a  quest  after 
the  chief  good.  The  Preacher  tries  one  thing  after 
another,  and  tells  his  experiences.  Amongst  these  are 
many  blunders.  It  is  the  final  lesson  which  he  would 
have  us  learn,  not  the  errors  through  which  he  reached 
it.  'The  conclusion  of  the  whole  matter'  is  what  he 
would  commend  to  us,  and  to  it  he  cleaves  his  way 
through  a  number  of  bitter  exaggerations  and  of 
partial  truths  and  of  unmingled  errors.  The  text  is 
one  of  a  string  of  paradoxical  sayings,  some  of  them 
very  true  and  beautiful,  some  of  them  doubtful,  but  all 
of  them  the  kind  of  things  which  used-up  men  are  wont 
to  say — the  salt  which  is  left  in  the  pool  when  the  tide 
is  gone  down.  The  text  is  the  utterance  of  a  wearied 
man  who  has  had  so  many  disappointments,  and  seen 
so  many  fair  beginnings  overclouded,  and  so  many 
ships  going  out  of  port  with  flying  flags  and  foundering 
at  sea,  that  he  thinks  nothing  good  till  it  is  ended ;  little 
worth  beginning — rest  and  freedom  from  all  external 
cares  and  duties  best ;  and,  best  of  all,  to  be  dead,  and 
have  done  with  the  whole  coil.  Obviously,  '  the  end 
of  a  thing '  here  is  the  parallel  to  '  the  day  of  death '  in 
verse  1,  which  is  there  preferred  to  *  the  day  of  one's 
birth.'  That  is  the  godless,  worn-out  worlding's  view  of 
the  matter,  which  is  infinitely  sad,  and  absolutely  untrue. 
But  from  another  point  of  view  there  is  a  truth  in 
these  words.  The  life  which  is  lived  for  God,  which  is 
rooted  in  Christ,  a  life  of  self-denial,  of  love,  of  purity,  of 
strenuous  *  pressing  towards  the  mark,'  is  better  in  its 


364  ECCLESIASTES  [ch.vii. 

« end '  tban  in  its  •  beginning.'  To  such  a  life  we  are  all 
called,  and  it  is  possible  for  each.  May  my  poor  Words 
help  some  of  us  to  make  it  ours. 

I.  Then  our  life  has  an  end. 

It  is  hard  for  any  of  us  to  realise  this  in  the  midst  of 
the  rush  and  pressure  of  daily  duty ;  and  it  is  not  alto- 
gether wholesome  to  think  much  about  it ;  but  it  is  still 
more  harmful  to  put  it  out  of  our  sight,  as  so  many 
of  us  do,  and  to  go  on  habitually  as  if  there  would 
never  come  a  time  when  we  shall  cease  to  be  where  we 
have  been  so  long,  and  when  there  will  no  more  arise 
the  daily  calls  to  transitory  occupations.  The  thought 
of  the  certainty  and  nearness  of  that  end  has  often 
become  a  stimulus  to  wild,  sensuous  living,  as  the 
history  of  the  relaxation  of  morality  in  pestilences, 
and  in  times  when  war  stalked  through  the  land,  has 
abundantly  shown.  'Let  us  eat  and  drink,  for  to- 
morrow we  die,'  is  plainly  a  way  of  reasoning  that 
appeals  to  the  average  man.  But  the  entire  forgetful- 
ness  that  there  is  an  end  is  no  less  harmful,  and  is  apt 
to  lead  to  over-indulgence  in  sensuous  desires  as  the 
other  extreme.  Perhaps  the  young  need  more  especi- 
ally to  be  recalled  to  the  thought  of  the  *  end,'  because 
they  are  more  especially  likely  to  forget  it,  and  because 
it  is  specially  worth  their  while  to  remember  it.  They 
have  still  the  long  stretch  before  the '  end '  before  them, 
to  make  of  it  what  they  will.  Whereas  for  us  who  are 
further  on  in  the  course,  there  is  less  time  and  oppor- 
tunity to  shape  our  path  with  a  view  to  its  close, 
and  to  those  of  us  in  old  age,  there  is  but  little  need  to 
preach  remembrance  of  what  has  come  so  close  to  us. 
It  is  to  the  young  man  that  the  Preacher  proffers  his 
final  advice,  to  •  rejoice  in  his  health,  and  to  walk  in  the 
ways  of  his  heart,  and  in  the  sight  of  his  eyes,'  but 


T.8]  FINIS  CORONAT  OPUS  865 

withal  to  know  that '  for  these  God  will  bring  him  into 
judgment.' 

And  in  that  counsel  is  involved  the  thought  that '  the 
end  which  is  better  than  the  beginning '  is  neither  old 
age,  with  its  limitations  and  compulsory  abstinences, 
nor  death,  which  is,  as  the  dreary  creed  of  the  book  in  its 
central  portions  believes  it  to  be,  the  close  of  all  things, 
but,  beyond  these,  the  state  in  which  men  will  reap  as 
they  have  sown,  and  inherit  what  they  have  earned. 
It  is  that  condition  which  gives  all  its  importance  to 
death — the  porter  who  opens  the  door  into  a  future 
life  of  recompence. 

II.  The  end  wiU,  in  many  respects,  not  be  better  than 
the  beginning. 

Put  side  by  side  the  infant  and  the  old  man.  Think 
of  the  undeveloped  strength,  the  smooth  cheek,  the 
ruddy  complexion,  the  rejoicing  in  physical  well-being, 
of  the  one,  with  the  failing  senses,  the  tottering  limbs, 
the  lowered  vitality,  the  many  pains  and  aches,  of  the 
other.  In  these  respects  the  end  is  worse  than  the 
beginning.  Or  go  a  step  further  onwards  in  life,  and 
think  of  youth,  with  its  unworn  energy,  and  the  wearied 
longing  for  rest  which  comes  at  the  end;  of  youth,  with 
its  quick,  open  receptiveness  for  all  impressions,  and  the 
horny  surface  of  callousness  which  has  overgrown  the 
mind  of  the  old ;  of  youth,  with  its  undeveloped  powers 
and  endless  possibilities,  which  in  the  old  have  become 
rigid  and  fixed ;  of  youth,  with  the  rich  gift  before  it  of 
a  continent  of  time,  which  in  the  old  has  been  washed 
away  by  the  ocean,  till  there  is  but  a  crumbling  bank 
still  to  stand  on ;  of  youth,  with  its  wealth  of  hopes,  and 
of  the  hopes  of  the  old,  which  are  solemn  ventures,  few 
and  scanty — and  then  say  if  the  end  is  not  worse  than 
the  beginning. 


366  ECCLESIASTES  [oh.  vii. 

And  if  we  go  further,  and  think  of  death  as  the  end, 
is  it  not  in  a  very  real  and  terrible  sense,  loss,  loss  ?  It 
is  loss  to  be  taken  out  of  the  world,  to  '  leave  the  warm 
precincts  and  the  cheerful  day,'  to  lose  friends  and 
lovers,  and  to  be  banned  into  a  dreary  land.  Yet, 
further,  the  thought  of  the  end  as  being  a  state  of 
retribution  strikes  upon  all  hearts  as  being  solemn 
and  terrible. 

III.  Yet  the  end  may  be  better. 

The  sensuous  indulgence  which  Ecclesiastes  preaches 
in  its  earlier  portions  will  never  lead  to  such  an  end. 
It  breeds  disgust  of  life,  as  the  examples  of  rou^s  in  all 
ages,  and  to-day,  abundantly  shows.  Epicurean  selfish- 
ness leads  to  weariness  of  all  effort  and  work.  If  we 
are  unwise  enough  to  make  either  of  these  our  guides 
in  life,  the  only  desirable  end  will  be  the  utter  cessation 
of  being  and  consciousness. 

But  there  is  a  better  sense  in  which  this  paradoxical 
saying  is  simple  truth,  and  that  sense  is  one  which  it  is 
possible  for  us  all  to  realise.  What  sort  of  end  would 
that  be,  the  brightness  of  which  would  far  outshine 
the  joy  when  a  man-child  is  born  into  the  world? 
Would  it  not  be  a  birth  into  a  better  life  than  that 
which  fills  and  often  disturbs  the  '  threescore  years 
and  ten '  here?  Would  it  not  be  an  end  to  a  course  in 
which  all  our  nature  would  be  fully  developed  and  all 
opportunities  of  growth  and  activity  had  been  used  to 
the  full  ?  which  had  secured  all  that  we  could  possess  ? 
which  had  happy  memories  and  calm  hopes  ?  Would 
it  not  be  an  end  which  brought  with  it  communion 
with  the  Highest — joys  that  could  never  fade,  activities 
that  could  never  weary  ?  Surely  the  Christian  heaven 
is  better  than  earth ;  and  that  heaven  may  be  ours. 

That  supreme  and  perfect  end  will  be  reached  by  us 


▼.8]  MISUSED  RESPITE  667 

through  faith  in  Christ,  and  through  union  by  faith  with 
Him.  If  we  are  joined  to  the  Lord  and  are  one  with 
Him,  our  end  in  glory  will  be  as  much  better  than  this 
our  beginning  on  earth  as  the  full  glory  of  a  summer's 
day  transcends  the  fogs  and  frosts  of  dreary  winter. 
*The  path  of  the  just  is  as  the  shining  light,  which 
shineth  more  and  more  unto  the  perfect  day.' 

If  the  end  is  not  better  than  the  beginning,  it  will'be 
infinitely  worse.  Golden  opportunities  will  be  gone ; 
wasted  years  will  be  irrevocable.  Bright  lights  will  be 
burnt  out ;  sin  will  be  graven  on  the  memory ;  remorse 
will  be  bitter ;  evil  habits  which  cannot  be  gratified 
will  torment ;  a  wearied  soul,  a  darkened  understand- 
ing, a  rebellious  heart,  will  make  the  end  awfully, 
infinitely,  always  worse  than  the  beginning.  From  all 
these  Jesus  Christ  can  save  us ;  and,  full  as  He  fills  the 
cup  of  life  as  we  travel  along  the  road,  He  keeps  the 
best  wine  till  the  last,  and  makes  '  the  end  of  a  thing 
better  than  the  beginning.' 


MISUSED  RESPITE 

*  Because  sentence  against  an  evil  work  is  not  executed  speedily,  therefore  the 
heart  of  the  sons  of  men  is  fully  set  in  them  to  do  eyil.'— Eccles.  vili.  11. 

When  the  Pharaoh  of  the  Exodus  saw  there  was 
respite,  he  hardened  his  heart.  Abject  in  his  fear 
before  Moses,  he  was  ready  to  promise  anything;  in- 
solent in  his  pride,  he  swallows  down  his  promises  as 
soon  as  fear  is  eased,  his  repentance  and  his  retracta- 
tion of  it  combined  to  add  new  weights  about  his  neck. 
He  was  but  a  conspicuous  example  of  a  universal  fault. 
Every  nation,  I  suppose,  has  its  proverb  scoffing  at  the 
contrast  between  the  sick  man's  vow  and  the  recovered 


368  ECCLESIASTES  [CH.vni. 

man's  sins.  The  bitter  moralist  of  the  Old  Testament 
was  sure  not  to  let  such  an  instance  of  man's  incon- 
ceivable levity  pass  unnoticed.  His  settled  habit  of 
dragging  to  light  the  seamy  side  of  human  nature  was 
sure  to  fall  on  this  illustration  of  it  as  congenial  food. 
He  has  wrapped  up  here  in  these  curt,  bitter  words  a 
whole  theory  of  man's  condition,  of  God's  providence, 
of  its  abuse,  and  of  the  end  to  which  it  all  tends. 

I.  Note  the  delay  in  executing  sentence. 

Every  'evil  work'  is  already  sentenced.  *He  that 
believeth  not,'  said  Christ,  'is  condemned  already' ;  and 
that  is  one  case  of  a  general  truth.  The  text  writes 
the  sentence  as  passed,  though  the  execution  is  for  a 
time  suspended.  What  is  the  underlying  fact  expressed 
by  this  metaphor  ?  God's  thorough  knowledge  of,  and 
displeasure  at,  every  evil.  When  one  sees  vile  things 
done  on  earth,  and  no  bolt  coming  out  of  the  clear  sky, 
it  is  not  easy  to  believe  that  all  the  foulness  is  known 
to  God ;  but  His  eye  reaches  further  than  He  wills  to 
stretch  His  arm.  He  sits  a  silent  Onlooker  and  beholds; 
the  silence  does  not  argue  indifference.  The  sentence 
is  pronounced,  but  the  execution  is  delayed.  It  is  not 
wholly  delayed,  for  there  are  consequences  which 
immediately  dog  our  evil  deeds,  and  are,  as  it  were, 
premonitions  of  a  yet  more  complete  penalty.  But  in 
the  present  order  of  things  the  connection  between  a 
man's  evil-doing  and  suffering  is,  on  the  whole,  slight, 
obscure,  and  partial.  Evil  triumphs ;  goodness  not 
seldom  suffers.  If  one  thinks  for  a  moment  of  the 
manifold  evils  of  the  world,  which  swathe  it,  as  it 
were,  in  an  atmosphere  of  woe— the  wars,  the  slavery, 
the  oppressions,  the  private  sorrows — and  then  thinks 
that  there  is  a  God  who  lets  all  these  go  on  from 
generation  to  generation,  we  seem  to  be  in  the  presence 


v.ll]  MISUSED  RESPITE  869 

of  a  mystery  of  mysteries.  The  Psalmist  of  old  ex- 
claimed in  adoring  wonder,  *  Thy  judgments  are  a  great 
deep';  but  the  absence  of  His  judgments  seems  to 
open  a  profounder  abyss  into  which  even  the  great 
mountains  of  His  righteousness  appear  in  danger  of 
falling. 

II.  The  reasons  for  this  delay. 

It  is  not  only  a  mystery,  but  it  is  a  '  mystery  of  love.' 
We  can  see  but  a  little  way  into  it,  but  we  can  see  so  far 
as  to  be  sure  that  the  apparent  passivity  of  God,  which 
looks  like  leaving  evil  to  work  its  unhindered  will,  is 
the  silence  of  a  God  who  'doth  not  willingly  afflict,' 
and  is  'slow  to  anger,'  because  He  is  perfect  love. 

The  ground  of  necessity  for  the  delay  in  executing 
the  sentence  lies,  partly,  in  the  probationary  character 
of  this  present  life.  If  evil-doing  was  always  followed 
by  swift  retribution,  obedience  would  be  only  the 
obedience  of  fear,  and  God  does  not  desire  such 
obedience.  It  would  be  impossible  that  testing  could 
go  on  at  all  if  at  every  instant  the  whole  of  the  con- 
sequences of  our  actions  were  being  realised.  Such  a 
<^ondition  of  things  is  unthinkable,  and  would  be  as 
confusing,  in  the  moral  sphere,  as  if  harvest  weather 
and  spring  weather  were  going  on  together.  Again, 
the  great  reason  why  sentence  against  an  evil  work  is 
not  executed  speedily  lies  in  God's  own  heart,  and  His 
desire  to  win  us  to  Himself  by  benefits.  He  does  not 
seek  enforced  obedience ;  He  neither  desires  our  being 
wedded  to  evil,  nor  our  being  weighed  upon  by  the 
consequences  of  our  sin,  and  so  He  holds  back  His 
hand.  It  is  to  be  remembered  that  He  not  merely  does 
thus  restrain  the  forthcoming  of  His  hand  of  judgment, 
but,  instead  of  it,  puts  forth  a  hand  of  blessing.  He 
moves  around  us  wooing  us  to  Himself,  and,  in  patience 

2  a 


370  ECCLESIASTES  [ch.viii. 

possessing  His  spirit,  marks  all  our  sins,  but  loves  and 
blesses  still.  He  gives  us  the  vineyard,  though  we  do 
not  give  Him  the  fruit.  Still  He  is  not  angry,  but 
sends  His  messengers,  and  we  stone  them.  Still  He 
waits :  wo  go  on  heaping  year  upon  year  of  rebellious 
forgetfulness,  and  no  lightning  flashes  from  His  eye, 
no  exclamation  of  wearied-out  patience,  comes  from 
His  lips,  no  rush  of  the  sudden  arrow  from  His  long- 
stretched  bow.  The  endless  patience  of  God  has  no 
explanation  but  only  this,  that  He  loves  us  too  well  to 
leave  any  means  untried  to  bring  us  to  Him,  and  that 
He  lingers  round  us  to  win  our  hearts.  O  rare  and 
unspeakable  love,  the  patient  love  of  the  patient  God ! 

III.  The  abuse  of  this  delay. 

We  have  the  knack  of  turning  God's  pure  gifts  into 
poison,  and  practise  a  devilish  chemistry  by  which  we 
distil  venom  from  the  flowers  of  Eden  and  the  roses 
of  the  garden  of  God.  I  don't  suppose  that  to  many 
men  the  respite  which  marks  God's  dealing  with  them 
actually  tends  to  doubts  of  His  righteousness,  or  of  His 
power,  or  of  His  being.  We  have  evidence  enough  of 
these;  and  the  apparently  counter  evidence,  arising 
from  the  impunity  of  evil-doers,  is  fairly  enough  laid 
aside  by  our  moral  instincts  and  consciousness,  and 
by  the  consideration  that  the  mighty  sweep  of  God's 
providence  is  too  great  for  us  to  decide  on  the  whole 
circle  by  the  small  portion  of  the  circumference  which 
we  have  seen.  But  what  most  men  do  is  simply  that 
they  permit  impunity  to  deaden  their  sense  of  right 
and  wrong,  and  go  on  in  their  course  without  any 
serious  thought  of  God's  blessings,  to  jostle  Him  out 
of  their  mind;  they  ^despise  the  riches  of  His  long- 
sufPering  goodness,'  and  never  suffer  it  to  'lead  them  to 
repentance.'     To  the  unthinking  minds  of  most  of  us, 


V.  11]  MISUSED  RESPITE  871 

the  long  continuance  of  impunity  lulls  us  into  a  dream 
of  its  perpetuity.  Man's  godless  ingratitude  is  as  deep 
a  mystery  as  is  God's  loving  patience.  It  is  strange 
that,  with  such  constant  failure  of  His  love  to  win,  God 
should  still  persevere  in  it.  For  more  than  seventy 
times  seven  He  persists  in  forgiving  the  rebellious  child 
who  sins  against  Him,  and  for  more  than  seventy  times 
seven  the  child  persists  in  the  abuse  of  the  Father's 
love,  which  still  remains — an  abuse  of  sin  above  all  sins. 
IV.  The  end  of  the  delay. 

The  sentence  is  passed.  It  is  impossible  that  it  should 
not  be  executed.  When  God  has  done  all,  and  sees  that 
the  point  of  hopelessness  is  reached,  or  when  the  time 
has  for  other  reasons  come,  then  He  lets  the  sentence 
take  effect.  He  kept  back  the  destroying  angels  from 
Sodom,  but  He  sent  them  forth  at  last.  There  is  a 
point  in  the  history  of  nations  and  of  men  when 
iniquity  is  '  full,'  and  when  God  sees  that  it  is  best,  on 
"orld-wide  grounds  or  personal  ones,  to  end  it.  So 
liere  come  for  nations  and  for  individuals  crises;  and 
lie  law  for  the  divine  working  is,  *  A  short  work  will 
lie  Lord  make  on  the  earth.'  For  long  years  Noah 
was  building  the  ark,  and  exposed  to  the  scoffs  of  a 
generation  whose  sentence  had  been  pronounced  and 
not  yet  executed ;  but  the  day  came  when  he  entered 
into  its  covert,  and  'the  flood  came  and  destroyed  them 
all.'  For  generations  He  would  fain  have  gathered  the 
people  of  Jerusalem  to  His  bosom  *  as  a  hen  gathereth 
her  chickens  under  her  wings,  and  they  would  not'; 
but  the  day  came  when  the  Roman  soldiers  cast  their 
torches  into  the  beautiful  house  where  their  fathers 
had  praised  Him,  and  sinned  against  Him,  and  it  was 
left  unto  them  desolate.  Let  us  not  be  high-minded 
nor  victims  of  our  levity  and  inconsiderateness,  but  fear. 


872  ECCLESIASTES  [oh.x. 

Let  us  remember  too  that  the  intensity  of  the  execu- 
tion is  aggravated  by  all  the  sins  committed  during 
the  delay.  By  them  we  'treasure  wrath  against  the 
day  of  wrath.'  He  says  to  His  angels  at  last  •  Now,' 
and  the  sword  falls,  and  justice  is  done.  '  The  mills  of 
God  grind  slowly,  but  they  grind  exceeding  small.' 
The  sum  of  the  whole  matter  is,  every  evil  of  ours  is 
sentenced  already ;  the  punishment  is  delayed  for  our 
sins,  and  because  Christ  has  died.  God  is  wooing  our 
hearts,  and  trying  to  win  us  to  love  Him  by  the  holding 
back  of  the  sentence  which  we  are  daily  abusing.  Shall 
we  not  accept  His  forbearance  and  take  His  gifts  as 
tokens  of  the  patient  tenderness  of  His  heart  ?  Or  are 
we  to  be  like  '  the  brutes  that  perish,'  knowing  neither 
the  hand  that  feeds  them,  nor  the  hand  that  kills  them. 
The  delay  in  rendering  *  the  just  recompence  of  reward ' 
only  aggravates  its  weight  when  it  falls.  As  in  some 
levers,  the  slower  the  motion,  the  greater  the  force  of 
the  lift. 


FENCES  AND  SERPENTS 

*. .  .  Whoso  braaketh  an'hedge,  a  serpent  shall  bite  him.'— Eooles.  x.  8. 

What  is  meant  here  is,  probably,  not  such  a  hedge  as 
we  are  accustomed  to  see,  but  a  dry-stone  wall,  or, 
perhaps,  an  earthen  embankment,  in  the  crevices  of 
which  might  lurk  a  snake  to  sting  the  careless  hand. 
The  connection  and  purpose  of  the  text  are  somewhat 
obscure.  It  is  one  of  a  string  of  proverb-like  sayings 
which  all  seem  to  be  illustrations  of  the  one  thought 
that  every  kind  of  work  has  its  own  appropriate  and 
peculiar  peril.  So,  says  the  Preacher,  if  a  man  is  dig- 
ging a  pit,  the  sides  of  it  may  cave  in  and  he  may  go 


V.8]  FENCES  AND  SERPENTS  373 

down.  If  he  is  pulling  down  a  wall  he  may  get  stung. 
If  he  is  working  in  a  quarry  there  may  be  a  fall  of 
rock.  If  he  is  a  woodman  the  tree  he  is  felling  may 
crush  him.  What  then?  Is  the  inference  to  be,  Sit 
still  and  do  nothing,  because  you  may  get  hurt  what- 
ever you  do  ?  By  no  means.  The  writer  of  this  book 
hates  idleness  very  nearly  as  much  as  he  does  what  he 
calls '  folly,'  and  his  inference  is  stated  in  the  next  verse 
— 'Wisdom  is  profitable  to  direct.'  That  is  to  say, 
since  all  work  has  its  own  dangers,  work  warily,  and 
with  your  brains  as  well  as  your  muscles,  and  do  not 
put  your  hand  into  the  hollow  in  the  wall,  until  you 
have  looked  to  see  whether  there  are  any  snakes  in  it. 
Is  that  very  wholesome  maxim  of  prudence  all  that 
is  meant  to  be  learned?  I  think  not.  The  previous 
clause,  at  all  events,  embodies  a  well-known  metaphor 
of  the  Old  Testament.  '  He  that  diggeth  a  pit  shall  fall 
into  it,'  often  occurs  as  expressing  the  retribution  in 
kind  that  comes  down  on  the  cunning  plotter  against 
other  men's  prosperity,  and  the  conclusion  that  wisdom 
suggests  in  that  application  of  the  sentence  is,  not '  Dig 
j  udiciously,'  but '  Do  not  dig  at  all.'  And  so  in  my  text 
the  *  wall '  may  stand  for  the  limitations  and  boundary- 
lines  of  our  lives,  and  the  inference  that  wisdom  sug- 
gests in  that  application  of  the  saying  is  not  'Pull 
down  judiciously,'  but  *  Keep  the  fence  up,  and  be  sure 
you  keep  on  the  right  side  of  it.'  For  any  attempt  to 
pull  it  down — which  being  interpreted  is,  to  transgress 
the  laws  of  life  which  God  has  enjoined — is  sure  to 
bring  out  the  hissing  snake  with  its  poison. 

Now  it  is  in  that  aspect  that  I  want  to  look  at  the 
words  before  us. 

I.  First  of  all,  let  us  take  that  thought  which  under- 
lies my  text — that  all  life  is  given  us  rigidly  walled  up. 


374  ECCLESIASTES  [ch.x. 

The  first  thing  that  the  child  learns  is,  that  it  must 
not  do  what  it  likes.  The  last  lesson  that  the  old  man 
has  to  learn  is,  you  must  do  what  you  ought.  And  be- 
tween these  two  extremes  of  life  we  are  always  making 
attempts  to  treat  the  world  as  an  open  common,  on 
which  we  may  wander  at  our  will.  And  before  we 
have  gone  many  steps,  some  sort  of  keeper  or  other 
meets  us  and  says  to  us,  '  Trespassers,  back  again  to 
the  road ! '  Life  is  rigidly  hedged  in  and  limited.  To 
live  as  you  like  is  the  prerogative  of  a  brute.  To  live 
as  you  ought,  and  to  recognise  and  command  by  obey- 
ing the  laws  and  limitations  stamped  upon  our  very 
nature  and  enjoined  by  our  circumstances,  is  the  free- 
dom and  the  glory  of  a  man.  There  are  limitations,  I 
say — fences  on  all  sides.  Men  put  up  their  fences ;  and 
they  are  often  like  the  wretched  wooden  hoardings 
that  you  sometimes  see  limiting  the  breadth  of  a  road. 
But  in  regard  to  these  conventional  limitations  and 
regulations,  which  own  no  higher  authority  or  law- 
giver than  society  and  custom,  you  must  make  up  your 
mind  even  more  certainly  than  in  regard  of  loftier 
laws,  that  if  you  meddle  with  them,  there  will  be 
plenty  of  serpents  coming  out  to  hiss  and  bite.  No 
man  that  defies  the  narrow  maxims  and  petty  re- 
strictions of  conventional  ways,  and  sets  at  nought  the 
opinions  of  the  people  round  about  him,  but  must  make 
up  his  mind  for  backbiting  and  slander  and  opposition 
of  all  sorts.  It  is  the  price  that  we  pay  for  obeying  at 
first  hand  th^  laws  of  God  and  caring  nothing  for  the 
conventionalities  of  men. 

But  apart  from  that  altogether,  let  me  just  remind 
you,  in  half  a  dozen  sentences,  of  the  various  limita- 
tions or  fences  which  hedge  up  our  lives  on  every  side. 
There  are  the  obligations  which  we  owe,  and  the  rela- 


V.8]  FENCES  AND  SERPENTS  375 

tions  in  which  we  stand,  to  the  outer  world,  the  laws  of 
physical  life,  and  all  that  touches  the  external  and  the 
material.  There  are  the  relations  in  which  we  stand, 
and  the  obligations  which  we  owe,  to  ourselves.  And 
God  has  so  made  us  as  that  obviously  large  tracts  of 
every  man's  nature  are  given  to  him  on  purpose  to  be 
restrained,  curbed,  coerced,  and  sometimes  utterly 
crushed  and  extirpated.  God  gives  us  our  impulses 
under  lock  and  key.  All  our  animal  desires,  all  our 
natural  tendencies,  are  held  on  condition  that  we  exer- 
cise control  over  them,  and  keep  them  well  within  the 
rigidly  marked  limits  which  He  has  laid  down,  and 
which  we  can  easily  find  out.  There  are,  further,  the 
relations  in  which  we  stand,  and  the  obligations  and 
limitations,  therefore,  under  which  we  come,  to  the 
people  round  about  us.  High  above  them  all,  and  in 
some  sense  including  them  all,  but  loftier  than  these, 
there  is  the  all-comprehending  relation  in  which  we 
stand  to  God,  who  is  the  fountain  of  all  obligations,  the 
source  and  aim  of  all  duty,  who  encompasses  us  on 
every  side,  and  whose  will  makes  the  boundary  walls 
within  which  alone  it  is  safe  for  a  man  to  live. 

We  sometimes  foolishly  feel  that  a  life  thus  hedged 
up,  limited  by  these  high  boundaries  on  either  side,  must 
be  uninteresting,  monotonous,  or  unfree.  It  is  not  so. 
The  walls  are  blessings,  like  the  parapet  on  a  mountain 
road,  that  keeps  the  travellers  from  toppling  over  the 
face  of  the  cliff.  They  are  training-walls,  as  our  hydro- 
graphical  engineers  talk  about,  which,  built  in  the  bed 
of  a  river,  wholesomely  confine  its  waters  and  make  a 
good  scour  which  gives  life,  instead  of  letting  them 
vaguely  wander  and  stagnate  across  great  fields  of 
mud.  Freedom  consists  in  keeping  willingly  within 
the  limits  which  God  has  traced,  and  anything  else  is 


376  ECCLESIASTES  [ch.x. 

not  freedom  but  licence  and  rebellion,  and  at  bottom 
servitude  of  the  most  abject  type. 

II.  So,  secondly,  note  that  every  attempt  to  break 
down  the  limitations  brings  poison  into  the  life. 

"We  live  in  a  great  automatic  system  which,  by  its 
own  operation,  largely  avenges  every  breach  of  law.  I 
need  not  remind  you,  except  in  a  word,  of  the  way  in 
which  the  transgression  of  the  plain  physical  laws 
stamped  upon  our  constitutions  avenges  itself ;  but  the 
certainty  with  which  disease  dogs  all  breaches  of  the 
laws  of  health  is  but  a  type  in  the  lower  and  material 
universe  of  the  far  higher  and  more  solemn  certainty 
with  which  '  the  soul  that  sinneth,  it  shall  die.'  Wher- 
ever a  man  sets  himself  against  any  of  the  laws  of  this 
material  universe,  they  make  short  work  of  him.  We 
command  them,  as  I  said,  by  obeying  them;  and  the 
difference  between  the  obedience  and  the  breach  of 
them  is  the  difference  between  the  engineer  standing 
on  his  engine  and  the  wretch  that  is  caught  by  it  as  it 
rushes  over  the  rails.  But  that  is  but  a  parable  of  the 
higher  thing  which  I  want  to  speak  to  you  about. 

The  grosser  forms  of  transgression  of  the  plain  laws 
of  temperance,  abstinence,  purity,  bring  with  them, 
in  like  manner,  a  visible  and  palpable  punishment  in 
the  majority  of  cases.  Whoso  pulls  down  the  wall  of 
temperance,  a  serpent  will  bite  him.  Trembling  hands, 
broken  constitutions,  ruined  reputations,  vanished  am- 
bitions, wasted  lives,  poverty,  shame,  and  enfeebled 
will,  death — these  are  the  serpents  that  bite,  in  many 
cases,  the  transgressor.  I  have  a  man  in  my  eye  at  this 
moment  that  used  to  sit  in  one  of  these  pews,  who 
came  into  Manchester  a  promising  young  man,  a  child 
of  many  prayers,  with  the  ball  at  his  foot,  in  one  of 
your  great  warehouses,  the  only  hope  of  his  house, 


V.8]  FENCES  AND  SERPENTS  877 

professedly  a  Christian.  He  began  to  tamper  with  the 
wall.  First  a  tiny  little  bit  of  stone  taken  out  that  did 
not  show  the  daylight  through ;  then  a  little  bigger, 
and  a  bigger.  And  the  serpent  struck  its  fangs  into 
him,  and  if  you  saw  him  now,  he  is  a  shambling  wreck, 
outside  of  society,  and,  as  we  sometimes  tremblingly 
think,  beyond  hope.  Young  men!  'whoso  breaketh 
an  hedge,  a  serpent  shall  bite  him.' 

In  like  manner  there  are  other  forms  of  *  sins  of  the 
flesh  avenged  in  kind,'  which  I  dare  not  speak  about 
more  plainly  here.  I  see  many  young  men  in  my  con- 
gregation, many  strangers  in  this  great  city,  living, 
I  suppose,  in  lodgings,  and  therefore  without  many 
restraints.  If  you  were  to  take  a  pair  of  compasses 
and  place  one  leg  of  them  down  at  the  Free  Trade  Hall, 
and  take  a  circle  of  half  a  mile  round  there,  you  would 
get  a  cavern  of  rattlesnakes.  You  know  what  I  mean. 
Low  theatres,  low  music-halls,  casinos,  haunts  of  yet 
viler  sorts — there  the  snakes  are,  hissing  and  writhing 
and  ready  bo  bite.  Do  not '  put  your  hand  on  the  hole 
of  the  asp.'  Take  care  of  books,  pictures,  songs,  com- 
panions that  would  lead  you  astray.  Oh  for  a  voice 
to  stand  at  some  doors  that  I  know  in  Manchester,  and 
peal  this  text  into  the  ears  of  the  fools,  men  and 
women,  that  go  in  there ! 

I  heard  only  this  week  of  one  once  in  a  good  position 
in  this  city,  and  in  early  days,  I  believe,  a  member  of 
my  own  congregation,  begging  in  rags  from  door  to 
door.  And  the  reason  was,  simply,  the  wall  had  been 
pulled  down  and  the  serpent  had  struck.  It  always 
does ;  not  with  such  fatal  external  effects  always,  but 
be  ye  sure  of  this,  *  God  is  not  mocked ;  "whatsoever  a 
man,"  or  a  woman  either,  "  soweth,  that  shall  he  also 
reap."*    For  remember  that  there  are  other  ways  of 


378  ECCLESIASTES  [ch.  x. 

pulling  down  walls  than  these  gross  and  palpable 
transgressions  with  the  body ;  and  there  are  other  sorts 
of  retributions  which  come  with  unerring  certainty  be- 
sides those  that  can  be  taken  notice  of  by  others.  I  do 
not  want  to  dwell  upon  these  at  any  length,  but  let  me 
just  remind  you  of  one  or  two  of  them. 

Some  serpents'  bites  inflame,  some  paralyse ;  and 
one  or  other  of  these  two  things — either  an  inflamed 
conscience  or  a  palsied  conscience — is  the  result  of 
all  wrongdoing.  I  do  not  know  which  is  the  worst. 
There  are  men  and  women  now  in  this  chapel,  sitting 
listening  to  me,  perhaps  half  interested,  without  the 
smallest  suspicion  that  I  am  talking  about  them.  The 
serpent's  bite  has  led  to  the  torpor  of  their  consciences. 
Which  is  the  worse — to  loathe  my  sin  and  yet  to  find 
its  slimy  coils  round  about  me,  so  that  I  cannot  break 
it,  or  to  have  got  to  like  it  and  to  be  perfectly  comfort- 
able in  it,  and  to  have  no  remonstrance  within  when  I 
do  it?  Be  sure  of  this,  that  every  transgression  and 
disobedience  acts  immediately  upon  the  conscience  of 
the  doer,  sometimes  to  stir  that  conscience  into  agonies 
of  gnawing  remorse,  more  often  to  lull  it  into  a  fatal 
slumber. 

I  do  not  apeak  of  the  retributions  which  we  heap 
upon  ourselves  in  loading  our  memories  with  errors 
and  faults,  in  polluting  them  often  with  vile  imagina- 
tions, or  in  laying  up  there  a  lifelong  series  of  actions, 
none  of  which  have  ever  had  a  trace  of  reference  to 
God  in  them.  I  do  not  speak,  except  in  a  sentence,  of 
the  retribution  which  comes  from  the  habit  of  evil 
which  weighs  upon  men,  and  makes  it  all  but  impossible 
for  them  ever  to  shake  off  their  sin.  I  do  not  speak, 
except  in  a  sentence,  of  the  perverted  relations  to  God, 
the  incapacity  of  knowing  Him,  the  disregard,  and  even 


V.8]  FENCES  AND  SERPENTS  379 

sometimes  the  dislike,  of  the  thought  of  Him  which 
steal  across  the  heart  of  the  man  that  lives  in  evil  and 
sin ;  but  I  put  all  into  two  words — every  sin  that  I  do 
tells  upon  myself,  inasmuch  as  its  virus  passes  into  my 
blood  as  guilt  and  as  habit.  And  then  I  remind  you 
of  what  you  say  you  believe,  that  beyond  this  world 
there  lies  the  solemn  judgment-seat  of  God,  where  you 
and  I  have  to  give  account  of  our  deeds.  O  brother, 
be  sure  of  this,  'whoso  breaketh  an  hedge' — here  and 
now,  and  yonder  also — *a  serpent  shall  bite  him'! 

That  is  as  far  as  my  text  carries  me.  It  has  (fiothing 
more  to  say.  Am  I  to  shut  the  book  and  have  done  ? 
There  is  only  one  system  that  has  anything  more  to 
say,  and  that  is  the  gospel  of  Jesus  Christ. 

III.  And  so,  passing  from  my  text,  I  have  to  say, 
lastly,  All  the  poison  may  be  got  out  of  your  veins  if 
■you  like. 

Our  Lord  used  this  very  same  metaphor  under  a 
different  aspect,  and  with  a  different  historical  applica- 
tion, when  He  said, '  As  Moses  lifted  up  the  serpent  in 
the  wilderness,  so  must  the  Son  of  Man  be  lifted  up, 
that  whosoever  believeth  in  Him  should  not  perish,  but 
have  eternal  life.' 

There  is  Christ's  idea  of  the  condition  of  this  world 
of  ours — a  camp  of  men  lying  bitten  by  serpents  and 
drawing  near  to  death.  What  I  have  been  speaking 
about,  in  perhaps  too  abstract  terms,  is  the  condition 
of  each  one  of  us.  It  is  hard  to  get  people,  when  they 
are  gathered  by  the  hundred  to  listen  to  a  sermon  flung 
out  in  generalities,  to  realise  it.  If  I  could  get  you  one 
by  one,  and  '  buttonhole  '  you  ;  and  instead  of  the  plural 
•you'  use  the  singular  'thou,'  perhaps  I  could  reach 
you.  But  let  me  ask  you  to  try  and  realise  each  for 
Jiimself  that  this  serpent  bite,  as  the  issue  of  pulling 


380  ECCLESIASTES  [oh.x. 

down  the  wall,  is  true  about  each  soul  in  this  place, 
and  that  Christ  endorsed  the  representation.  How 
are  we  to  get  this  poison  out  of  the  blood?  Reform 
your  ways?  Yes;  I  say  that  too;  but  reforming 
the  life  will  deliver  from  the  poison  in  the  character, 
when  you  cure  hydrophobia  by  washing  the  patient's 
skin,  and  not  till  then.  It  is  all  very  well  to  repaper 
your  dining-rooms,  but  it  is  very  little  good  doing  that 
if  the  drainage  is  wrong.  It  ia  the  drainage  that  is 
wrong  with  us  all.  A  man  cannot  reform  himself 
down  to  the  bottom  of  his  sinful  being.  If  he  could,  it 
does  not  touch  the  past.  That  remains  the  same.  If 
he  could,  it  does  not  affect  his  relation  to  God.  Repent- 
ance—  if  it  were  possible  apart  from  the  softening 
influence  of  faith  in  Jesus  Christ  —  repentance  alone 
would  not  solve  the  problem.  So  far  as  men  can  see, 
and  so  far  as  all  human  systems  have  declared,  *  What 
I  have  written  I  have  written.'  There  is  no  erasing  it. 
The  irrevocable  past  stands  stereotyped  for  ever.  Then 
comes  in  this  message  of  forgiveness  and  cleansing, 
which  is  the  very  heart  of  all  that  we  preachers  have 
to  say,  and  has  been  spoken  to  most  of  you  so  often 
that  it  is  almost  impossible  to  invest  it  with  any  kind 
of  freshness  or  power.  But  once  more  I  have  to  preach 
to  you  that  Christ  has  received  into  His  own  inmost 
life  and  self  the  whole  gathered  consequences  of  a 
world's  sin  ;  and  by  the  mystery  of  His  sympathy,  and 
the  reality  of  His  mysterious  union  with  us  men.  He, 
the  sinless  Son  of  God,  has  been  made  sin  for  us,  that 
we  might  be  made  the  righteousness  of  God  in  Him. 
The  brazen  serpent  lifted  on  the  pole  was  in  the  like- 
ness of  the  serpent  whose  poison  slew,  but  there  was 
no  poison  in  it.  Christ  has  come,  the  sinless  Son  of 
God,  for  you  and  me.    He  has  died  on  the  Cross,  th« 


V.  8]  THE  WAY  TO  THE  CITY  881 

Sacrifice  for  erery  man's  sin,  that  every  man's  wound 
might  be  healed,  and  the  poison  cast  out  of  his  reins. 
He  has  bruised  the  malignant,  black  head  of  the  snake 
with  His  wounded  heel;  and  because  He  has  been 
wounded,  we  are  healed  of  our  wounds.  For  sin  and 
death  launched  their  last  dart  at  Him,  and,  like  some 
venomoui  insect  that  can  sting  once  and  then  must 
die,  they  left  their  sting  in  His  wounded  heart,  and 
hare  none  for  them  that  put  their  trust  in  Him. 

So,  dear  brother,  here  is  the  simple  condition — namely, 
faith.  One  look  of  the  languid  eye  of  the  poisoned 
man,  howsoever  bloodshot  and  dim  it  might  be,  and 
howsoever  nearly  veiled  with  the  film  of  death,  was 
enough  to  make  him  whole.  The  look  of  our  con- 
sciously sinful  souls  to  that  dear  Christ  that  has  died 
for  us  will  take  away  the  guilt,  the  power,  the  habit, 
the  love  of  evil ;  and,  instead  of  blood  saturated  with 
the  venom  of  sin,  there  will  be  in  our  veins  the  Spirit  of 
life  in  Christ,  which  will '  mak«  us  free  from  the  law  of 
sin  and  death.'  '  Look  unto  Him  and  be  ye  saved,  all 
the  ends  of  the  earth  I ' 


THE  WAY  TO  THE  CITY 

*  The  labour  of  the  foolish  wesrieth  erer j  one  of  khem,  becauM  he  knowefeh  nob 
how  to  go  to  the  olfey.'— £cx3Les.  z.  U. 

On  the  surface  this  seems  to  be  merely  a  piece  of 
homely,  practical  sagacity,  conjoined  with  one  of  the 
bitter  things  which  Ecclesiastes  is  fond  of  saying  about 
those  whom  he  calls  '  fools.*  It  seems  to  repeat,  under 
another  metaphor,  the  same  idea  which  has  been  pre- 
sented in  a  previous  verse,  where  we  read:  *If  the 
iron  be  blunt,  and  he  do  not  whet  the  edge,  then  must 
he  put  to  more  strength ;  but  wisdom  is  profitable  to 


382  ECCLESIASTES  [ch.x. 

direct.'  That  is  to  say,  skill  is  better  than  strength ; 
brain  saves  muscle  ;  better  sharpen  your  axe  than  put 
yourself  into  a  perspiration,  hitting  fierce  blows  with 
a  blunt  one.  The  prerogative  of  wisdom  is  to  guide 
brute  force.  And  so  in  my  text  the  same  general 
idea  comes  under  another  figure.  Immense  effort  may 
end  in  nothing  but  tired  feet  if  the  traveller  does  not 
know  his  road.  A  man  lost  in  the  woods  may  run  till 
he  drops,  and  find  himself  at  night  in  the  place  from 
which  he  started  in  the  morning.  The  path  must  be 
known,  and  the  aim  clear,  if  any  good  is  to  come  of 
effort. 

That  phrase,  •  how  to  go  to  the  city,'  seems  to  be  a 
kind  of  proverbial  comparison  for  anything  that  is 
very  plain  and  conspicuous,  just  as  our  forefathers 
used  to  say  about  any  obvious  truth,  that  it  was  'as 
plain  as  the  road  to  London  town.'  The  road  to  the 
capital  is  sure  to  be  a  well-marked  one,  and  he  must 
be  a  fool  indeed  who  cannot  see  that.  So  our  text, 
though  on  the  surface,  as  I  say,  is  simply  a  sarcasm 
and  a  piece  of  homely,  practical  sagacity,  yet,  like 
almost  all  the  sayings  in  this  Book  of  Ecclesiastes,  it 
has  a  deeper  meaning  than  appears  on  the  surface; 
and  may  be  applied  in  higher  and  more  important 
directions.  It  carries  with  it  large  truths,  and  enshrines 
in  a  vivid  metaphor  bitter  experiences  which,  I  sup- 
pose, we  can  all  confirm. 

I.  We  consider,  first,  the  toil  that  tires. 

'The  labour  wearies  every  one  of  them.'  The  word 
translated  '  labour '  seems  to  carry  with  it  both  the  idea 
of  effort  and  of  trouble.  Or  to  recur  to  a  familiar 
distinction  in  modern  English,  the  word  really  covers 
both  the  ground  of  work  and  of  worry.  And  it  is  a 
sad  and  solemn  thought  that  a  word  with  that  double 


V.15]         THE  WAY  TO  THE  CITY  383 

element  in  it  should  be  the  one  which  is  most  truly 
applicable  to  the  efforts  of  a  large  majority  of  men. 
I  suppose  there  never  was  a  time  in  the  world's  history 
when  life  went  so  fast  as  it  does  in  these  great  centres 
of  civilisation  and  commerce  in  which  you  and  I  live. 
And  it  is  awful  to  have  to  think  that  the  great  mass 
of  it  all  ends  in  nothing  else  but  tired  limbs  and 
exhaustion.  That  is  a  truth  to  be  verified  by  ex- 
perience, and  I  am  bold  to  believe  that  every  man 
and  woman  in  this  chapel  now  can  say  more  or  less 
distinctly  '  Amen ! '  to  the  assertion  that  every  life, 
except  a  distinctly  and  supremely  religious  one,  is 
worry  and  work  without  adequate  satisfying  result, 
and  with  no  lasting  issue  but  exhaustion. 

Let  us  begin  at  the  bottom.  For  instance,  take  a 
man  who  has  avowedly  flung  aside  the  restraints  of 
right  and  wrong  and  conscience,  and  does  things 
habitually  that  he  knows  to  be  wrong.  Every  sin  is  a 
blunder  as  well  as  a  crime.  No  man  who  aims  at  an 
end  through  the  smoke  of  hell  gets  the  end  that  he 
aims  at.  Or  if  he  does,  he  gets  something  that  takes 
all  the  gilt  off  the  gingerbread,  and  all  the  sweetness 
out  of  the  success.  They  put  a  very  evil-tasting  in- 
gredient into  spirits  of  wine  to  prevent  its  being  drunk. 
The  cup  that  sin  reaches  to  a  man,  though  the  wine 
moveth  itself  aright  and  is  very  pleasant  to  look  at 
before  being  tasted,  cheats  with  methylated  spirits. 
Men  and  women  take  more  pains  and  trouble  to  damn 
themselves  than  ever  they  do  to  have  their  souls  saved. 
The  end  of  all  work,  which  begins  with  tossing  con- 
science on  one  side,  is  simply  this — *  The  labour  of  the 
foolish  wearieth  every  one  of  them.' 

Take  a  step  higher — a  respectable,  well-to-do  Man- 
chester man,  successful  in  business.    He  has  m,ade  it 


384  ECCLESIASTES  [ch.  x. 

his  aim  to  build  up  a  large  concern,  and  has  succeeded. 
He  has  a  fine  house,  carriages,  greenhouses ;  he  has 
'J.P.'  to  his  name;  he  stands  high  in  credit  and  on 
'Change.  His  name  is  one  that  gives  respectability  to 
anything  that  it  is  connected  with.  Has  he  '  come  to 
the  city'?  Has  he  got  what  he  thought  he  would  get 
when  he  began  his  career?  He  has  succeeded  in  his 
immediate  and  smaller  purpose ;  has  that  immediate 
and  smaller  purpose  succeeded  in  bringing  him  what 
he  thought  it  would  bring  him?  Or  has  he  fallen  a 
victim  to  those — 

•  Juggling  fiends  .  .  . 
That  palter  Trith  us  in  a  double  iense  ; 
That  keep  the  word  of  promise  to  the  ear. 
And  break  it  to  the  hope  ? ' 

They  tell  us  that  if  you  put  down  in  one  column  the 
value  of  the  ore  that  has  been  extracted  from  all  the 
Australian  gold-mines,  and  in  another  the  amount  that 
it  has  cost  to  get  it,  the  latter  sum  will  exceed  the 
former.  There  are  plenty  of  people  in  Manchester  who 
have  put  more  down  into  the  pit  from  which  they  dig 
their  wealth  than  ever  they  will  get  out  of  it.  And 
their  labour,  too,  leaves  a  very  dark  and  empty  aching 
centre  in  their  lives,  *  and  wearieth  every  one  of  them.' 
And  so  I  might  go  the  whole  round.  We  students, 
so  long  as  our  pursuit  of  knowledge  has  not  in  it  as 
supreme,  directing  motive,  and  ultimate  aim  and  issue, 
the  glory  and  the  service  of  God,  come  under  the  lash 
of  the  same  condemnation  as  those  grosser  and  lower 
forms  of  life  of  which  I  have  been  speaking.  But 
wherever  we  look,  if  there  be  not  in  the  heart  and  in 
the  life  a  supreme  regard  to  God  and  a  communion 
with  Him,  then  this  characteristic  is  common  to  all  the 
courses,  that,  whilst  they  may  each  meet  some  imme- 


V.  15]         THE  WAY  TO  THE  CITY  385 

diate  and  partial  necessity  of  our  natures,  none  of 
them  is  adequate  for  the  whole  circumference  of  a 
man's  being,  nor  any  of  them  able,  during  the  whole 
duration  of  that  being,  to  be  his  satisfaction  and  his 
rest.  Therefore,  I  say,  all  toil,  however  successful  to 
the  view  of  a  shorter  range  of  vision,  and  however 
noble— excluding  the  noblest  of  all — all  toil  that  ends 
only  in  securing  that  which  perishes  with  the  using, 
or  that  which  we  leave  behind  us  here  when  we  pass 
hence,  is  condemned  for  folly  and  labour  that  wearies 
the  men  who  are  fools  enough  to  surrender  them- 
selves to  it. 

I  need  not  remind  you  of  the  wonderful  variety  of 
metaphor  under  which  that  threadbare  thought,  which 
yet  it  is  so  hard  for  us  to  believe  and  make  operative 
in  our  lives,  is  represented  to  us  in  Scripture.  Just  let 
me  recall  one  or  two  of  them  in  the  briefest  way. 
'  Why  do  ye  spend  your  money  for  that  which  is  not 
bread,  and  your  labour  for  that  which  profiteth  not  ? ' 
'They  have  hewn  for  themselves  cisterns,  broken 
cisterns  that  can  hold  no  water.'  '  Their  webs  shall 
not  become  garments.'  That  may  want  a  word  of 
explanation.  The  metaphor  is  this.  You  are  all  like 
spiders  spinning  carefully  and  diligently  your  web. 
There  is  not  substance  enough  in  it  to  make  a  coat  out 
of.  You  will  never  cover  yourselves  with  the  product 
of  your  own  brains  or  your  own  efforts.  There  is  no 
clothing  in  the  spider's  webs  of  a  godless  life. 

Ah !  brother,  all  these  earthly  aims  which  some  of 
my  friends  listening  to  me  now  have  for  the  sole 
aims  of  their  lives,  are  as  foolish  and  as  inadequate  to 
accomplish  that  which  is  sought  for  by  them,  as  it 
would  be  to  seek  to  quench  raging  thirst  by  lifting  to 
the  lips  a  golden  cup  that  is  empty.    Some  of  us  have 

2b 


386  ECCLESIASTES  [ch.x. 

a  whole  sideboard  full  of  such,  and  vary  our  pursuits 
according  to  inclination  and  task.  Some  of  us  have 
only  one  such,  but  they  are  all  empty,  and  the  lip  is 
parched  after  the  cup  has  been  lifted  to  it  as  it  was 
before. 

II.  And  so,  consider  now,  secondly,  the  foolish  ignor- 
ance that  makes  the  toil  tiresome. 

The  metaphor  of  my  text  says  that  the  reason  why 
the  *  fool '  is  so  wearied  after  the  day's  march  is  that  he 
does  not  in  the  morning  settle  where  he  is  going,  and 
how  he  is  to  get  there ;  and  so,  having  started  to  go 
nowhither,  he  has  got  where  he  started  for.  He  '  does 
not  know  how  to  go  to  the  city ' — which,  being  trans- 
lated into  plain  and  unmetaphorical  English,  is  just 
this,  that  many  men  wreck  their  lives  for  want  of 
a  clear  sight  of  their  true  aim,  and  of  the  way  to 
secure  it. 

There  is  nothing  more  tragical  than  the  absence,  in 
the  great  bulk  of  men,  of  anything  like  deliberate, 
definite  views  as  to  their  aim  in  life,  and  the  course  to 
be  taken  to  secure  it.  There  are  two  things  obviously 
necessary  for  success  in  any  enterprise.  One  is,  that 
there  shall  be  the  most  definite  and  clear  conception  of 
what  is  aimed  at ;  and  the  other,  that  there  shall  be  a 
wisely  considered  plan  to  get  at  it.  Unless  there  be 
these,  if  you  go  at  random,  running  a  little  way  for  a 
moment  in  this  direction,  and  then  heading  about 
and  going  in  the  other,  you  cannot  expect  to  get  to 
the  goal. 

Now,  what  I  want  to  ask  some  of  my  friends  here 
is.  Did  you  ever  give  ten  deliberate  minutes  to  try 
to  face  for  yourselves,  and  put  into  plain  words, 
what  you  are  living  for,  and  how  you  mean  to  secure 
it?    Of  course  I  know  that  you  have  given  thought 


V.  15]         THE  WAY  TO  THE  CITY  387 

and  planning  in  plenty  to  the  nearer  aims,  without 
which  material  life  cannot  be  lived  at  all.  I  do  not 
suppose  that  anybody  here  is  chargeable  with  not 
having  thought  enough  about  how  to  get  on  in  business, 
or  in  their  chosen  walk  of  life.  It  is  not  that  kind  of 
aim  which  I  mean  at  all;  but  it  is  a  point  beyond  it 
that  I  want  to  press  upon  you.  You  are  like  men  who 
would  carefully  victual  a  ship  and  take  the  best  in- 
formation for  their  guide  as  to  what  course  to  lie,  and 
had  never  thought  what  they  were  going  to  do  when 
they  got  to  the  port.  So  you  say,  *  I  am  going  to  be 
such-and-such  a  thing.'  Well,  what  then?  'Well,  I 
am  going  to  lay  myself  out  for  success.'  Be  it  com- 
mercial, be  it  intellectual,  be  it  social,  be  it  in  the 
sphere  of  the  affections,  or  whatever  it  may  be.  Well, 
what  then?  'Well,  then  I  am  going  to  advance  in 
material  prosperity,  I  hope,  or  in  wisdom,  or  to  be 
surrounded  by  loving  faces  of  children  and  those  that 
are  dear  to  me.'  What  then  ?  '  Then  I  am  going  to 
die.'    What  then? 

It  is  not  till  you  get  to  that  last  question,  and  have 
faced  it  and  answered  it,  that  you  can  be  said  to  have 
taken  the  whole  sweep  of  the  circumstances  into  view, 
and  regulated  your  course  according  to  the  dictates 
of  common  sense  and  right  reason.  And  a  terribly 
large  number  of  us  live  with  careful  adaptation  of 
means  to  ends  in  regard  of  all  the  smaller  and  more 
immediately  to  be  realised  aims  of  life,  but  have  never 
faced  the  larger  question  which  reduces  all  these 
smaller  aims  to  insignificance.  The  simple  child's 
interrogation  which  in  the  well-known  ballad  ripped 
the  tinsel  off  the  skeleton,  and  showed  war  in  its 
hideousness,  strips  many  of  your  lives  of  all  pretence 
to  be  reasonable.     '  What  good  came  of  it  at  the  last  ? ' 


388  ECCLESIASTES  [ch.  x. 

Can  you  answer  the  question  that  the  infant  lips 
asked,  and  say,  '  This  good  will  come  of  it  at  last. 
That  I  shall  have  God  for  my  own,  and  Jesus  Christ  in 
ray  heart '  ? 

Brother !  if  I  could  only  get  you  to  this  point,  that 
you  would  take  half  an  hour  now  to  think  over 
what  you  ought  to  be,  and  to  ask  yourself  whether 
your  aims  in  life  correspond  to  what  your  aims  should 
be,  I  should  have  done  more  than  I  am  afraid  I  shall 
do  with  some  of  you.  The  naturalist  can  tell  when  he 
picks  up  a  skeleton  something  of  the  habits  and  the 
element  of  the  creature  to  which  it  belonged.  If  it 
has  a  hollow  sternum  he  knows  it  is  meant  to  fly.  On 
your  nature  is  impressed  unmistakably  that  your 
destiny  is  not  to  creep,  but  to  soar.  Not  in  vain  does 
the  Westminster  Catechisnx  lay  the  foundation  of 
everything  in  this,  the  prime  question  for  all  men, 
'  What  is  the  chief  end  of  man  ? '  Ask  that,  and  do  not 
rest  till  you  have  answered  it. 

Then  there  is  another  idea  connected  with  this 
ignorance  of  my  text — viz.  that  it  is  the  result  of 
folly.  Now  the  words  '  folly '  and  '  foolish '  and  *  fool- 
ishness,' and  their  opposites,  •  wisdom '  and  '  wise,'  in 
this  Book  of  Ecclesiastes,  as  in  the  Book  of  Proverbs, 
do  not  mean  merely  dull  stupidity  intellectually,  which 
is  a  thing  for  which  a  man  is  to  be  pitied  rather  than 
to  be  blamed,  but  they  always  carry  besides  the  idea 
of  intellectual  defect,  also  the  idea  of  moral  obliquity. 
•The  fear  of  the  Lord  is  the  beginning  of  wisdom'; 
and,  conversely,  the  absence  of  that  fear  is  the  founda- 
tion of  that  which  this  writer  stigmatises  as  'folly' 
He  is  not  merely  sneering  at  men  with  small  brains 
and  little  judgments.  There  may  be  plenty  of  us  who 
are  so,  and  yet  are  wise  unto  salvation  and  possessed 


V.15]         THE  WAY  TO  THE  CITY  389 

of  a  far  higher  wisdom  than  that  of  this  world.  But 
he  tells  us  that  so  strangely  intertwined  are  the  intel- 
lectual and  moral  parts  of  our  nature,  that  whereso- 
ever there  is  the  obscuration  of  the  latter  there  is  sure 
to  be  the  perversion  of  the  former,  and  the  man  knows 
iKjt '  how  to  go  to  the  city'  because  he  is  'foolish.' 

That  is  to  say,  you  go  wrong  in  your  judgment 
about  your  conduct  because  you  have  gone  wrong 
morally.  And  your  blunders  about  life,  and  your 
ignorance  of  its  true  end  and  aim,  and  your  mistakes 
as  to  how  to  secure  happiness  and  blessedness,  are 
your  own  faults,  and  are  owing  to  the  aversion  of 
your  nature  from  that  which  is  highest  and  noblest, 
even  God  and  His  service.  Therefore  you  are  not  only 
to  be  pitied  because  you  are  out  of  the  road,  but  to  be 
blamed  because  you  have  darkened  the  eyes  of  your 
mind  by  loving  the  darkness  rather  than  the  light. 
And  you  '  do  not  know  how  to  go  to  the  city,'  because 
you  do  not  want  to  go  to  the  city,  and  would  rather 
huddle  here  in  the  wilderness,  and  live  upon  its  poor 
supplies,  than  pass  within  the  golden  gates.  My 
brethren !  the  folly  which  blinds  a  man  to  his  true  aim 
and  mission  in  life  is  a  folly  which  has  in  it  the  darker 
aspect  of  sin,  and  is  punishable  as  such. 

III.  Lastly,  note  the  plain  path  which  the  foolish 
miss. 

He  *  does  not  know  how  to  go  to  the  city.'  What  on 
earth  will  he  be  able  to  see  if  he  cannot  see  that  broad 
highway,  beaten  and  white,  stretching  straight  before 
him,  over  hill  and  dale,  and  going  right  to  the  gates  ? 
A  man  must  be  a  fool  who  cannot  find  the  way  to 
London. 

The  principles  of  moral  conduct  are  trite  and 
obvious.    It  is  plain  that  it  is  better  to  be  good  than 


390  ECCLESIASTES  [ch.x. 

bad.  It  is  better  to  be  unselfish  than  selfish.  It  is 
better  not  to  live  for  things  that  perish,  seeing  that  we 
are  going  to  last  for  ever.  It  is  better  not  to  make 
the  flesh  our  master  here,  seeing  that  the  spirit  will 
have  to  live  without  the  flesh  some  day.  It  is  better 
to  get  into  training  for  the  world  to  coma,  seeing  that 
we  are  all  drifting  thither.  All  these  things  are  plain 
and  obvious. 

Man's  destiny  for  God  is  unmistakable.  'Whose 
image  and  superscription  hath  it?'  said  Christ  about 
the  coin.  '  Caesar's ! '  '  Then  give  it  to  Caesar.'  Whose 
image  and  superscription  hath  my  heart,  this  restless 
heart  of  mine,  this  spirit  that  wanders  on  through 
space  and  time,  homeless  and  comfortless,  until  it  can 
grasp  the  Eternal?  Who  are  you  meant  for?  God! 
And  every  fibre  of  your  nature  has  a  voice  to  say  so 
to  you  if  you  listen  to  it.  So,  then,  a  godless  life  such 
as  some  of  you,  my  hearers,  are  contentedly  living, 
ignores  facts  that  are  most  patent  to  every  man's  ex- 
perience. And  while  before  you,  huge  '  as  a  mountain, 
open,  palpable,'  are  the  commonplaces  and  undeniable 
verities  which  declare  that  every  man  who  is  not  a 
God-fearing  man  is  a  fool,  you  admit  them  all,  and, 
bowing  your  heads  in  reverence,  let  them  all  go  over 
you  and  produce  no  effect. 

The  road  is  clearer  than  ever  since  Jesus  Christ 
came.  He  has  shown  us  the  city,  for  He  has  brought 
life  and  immortality  to  light  by  the  Gospel.  He  has 
shown  us  the  road,  for  His  life  is  the  pattern  of  all 
that  men  ought  to  aim  at  and  to  be.  The  motto  of  the 
eternal  Son  of  God,  if  I  may  venture  upon  such  a 
metaphor,  is  like  the  motto  of  the  heir-apparent  of  the 
English  throne, '  I  serve.'  '  Lo !  I  come  to  do  Thy  will ' 
— and  that  is  the  only  word  which  will  make  a  human 


V.15]  A  NEW  YEARS  SERMON  391 

life  peaceful  and  strong  and  beautiful.  In  the  presence 
of  His  radiant  and  solitary  perfection,  men  no  longer 
need  to  wonder,  What  is  the  ideal  to  which  conduct 
and  character  should  be  conformed  ?  And  Jesus  Christ 
has  come  to  make  it  possible  to  go  to  the  city,  by  that 
cross  on  which  He  bore  the  burden  of  all  sin,  and 
takes  away  the  sin  of  the  world,  and  by  that  Spirit 
of  life  which  He  will  impart  to  our  weakness,  and 
which  makes  our  sluggish  feet  run  in  the  way  of  His 
commandments,  and  not  be  weary,  and  walk  and  not 
faint. 

Take  that  dear  Lord  for  your  revelation  of  duty,  for 
your  Pattern  of  conduct,  for  the  forgiveness  of  your 
sins,  for  the  Inspirer  with  power  to  do  His  will,  and 
then  you  will  see  stretching  before  you,  high  up  above 
the  surrounding  desert,  so  that  no  lion  nor  ravenous 
beast  shall  go  up  there,  the  highway  on  which  the 
ransomed  of  the  Lord  shall  walk,  '  and  the  wayfaring 
man,  though  a  fool,  shall  not  err  therein.'  '  Blessed  are 
they  that  wash  their  robes,  that  they  may  enter  in 
through  the  gates  into  the  City.' 


A  NEW  YEAR'S  SERMON  TO  THE  YOUNG 

'  Rejoice,  O  young  man,  in  thy  youth,  and  let  thy  heart  cheer  thee  in  the  days  of 
iby  youth,  and  walk  In  the  ways  of  thine  heart,  and  in  the  sight  of  thine  eyes :  but 
know  tho\i,  that  for  all  these  things  God  will  bring  thee  into  judgment.  .  .  . 
Remember  now  thy  Creator  in  the  days  of  thy  youth,  while  the  evil  days  come 
not,  nor  the  years  draw  nigh,  when  thou  ehalt  say,  I  have  no  pleasure  in  them.'— 
EccLEB.  xi.  9 ;  xii.  1. 

This  strange,  and  in  some  places  perplexing  Book  of 
Ecclesiastes,  is  intended  to  be  the  picture  of  a  man  fight- 
ing his  way  through  perplexities  and  half-truths  to 
a  clear  conviction  in  which  he  can  rest.  What  he  says 
in  his  process  of  coming  to  that  conviction  is  not  always 


392  ECCLESIASTES  [ch.xi. 

to  be  taken  as  true.  Much  that  is  spoken  in  the  earlier 
portion  of  the  Book  is  spoken  in  order  to  be  confuted, 
and  its  insufficiency,  its  exaggerations,  its  onesidedness, 
and  its  half-truths,  to  be  manifest  in  the  light  of  the 
ultimate  conclusion  to  which  he  comes.  Through  all 
these  perplexities  he  goes  on  'sounding  his  dim  and 
perilous  way,'  with  pitfalls  on  this  side  of  him  and  bogs 
on  that,  till  he  comes  out  at  last  upon  the  open  way, 
with  firm  ground  under  foot  and  a  clear  sky  overhead. 
These  phrases  which  I  have  taken  are  the  opening 
sentences  and  the  final  conclusion  on  which  he  rests. 
How  then  are  they  meant  to  be  understood?  Is  that 
saying,  '  Rejoice,  O  young  man !  in  the  days  of  thy 
youth,  and  let  thy  heart  cheer  thee  in  the  days  of  thy 
youth,  and  walk  in  the  ways  of  thine  heart  and  in  the 
sight  of  thine  eyes,'  to  be  taken  as  a  bit  of  fierce  irony  ? 
Is  this  a  man  taking  the  maxims  of  the  foolish  woi'ld 
about  him  and  seeming  to  approve  of  them  in  order 
that  he  may  face  round  at  the  end  with  a  quick  turn 
and  a  cynical  face  and  hand  them  back  their  maxims 
along  with  that  which  will  shatter  them  to  pieces — as 
if  he  said,  *  Oh,  yes !  go  on,  talk  your  fill  about  making 
the  best  of  this  world,  and  rejoicing  and  doing  as  you 
like,  dancing  on  the  edge  of  a  precipice,  and  fiddling, 
like  Nero,  whilst  a  worse  fire  than  that  of  Rome  is 
burning  '  ?  Well,  I  do  not  think  that  is  the  meaning  of 
it.  Though  there  is  irony  to  be  found  in  the  Bible,  I  do 
not  think  that  fierce  irony  like  that  which  might  do  for 
the  like  of  Dean  Swift,  is  the  intention  of  the  Preacher. 
So  I  take  these  words  to  be  said  in  good  faith,  as  a 
frank  recognition  of  the  fact  that,  after  all  we  have 
been  hearing  about  vanity  and  vexation  of  spirit,  life 
is  worth  living  for,  and  that  God  means  young  people 
to  be  glad  and  to  make  the  best  of  the  fleeting  years 


V  9]  A  NEW  YEAR'S  SERMON  393 

that  will  never  come  back  with  the  same  buoyancy  and 
elasticity  all  their  lives  long.  And  then  I  take  it  that 
the  words  added  are  not  meant  to  destroy  or  neutralise 
the  concession  of  the  first  sentence,  but  only  to  purify 
and  ennoble  a  gladness  which,  without  them,  would  be 
apt  to  be  stained  by  many  a  corruption,  and  to  make 
permanent  a  joy  which,  without  them,  would  be  sure 
to  die  down  into  the  miserable,  peevish,  and  feeble  old 
age  of  which  the  grim  picture  follows,  and  to  be 
quenched  at  last  in  death.  So  there  are  three  words 
that  I  take  out  of  this  text  of  mine,  and  that  I  want  to 
bring  before  my  young  friends  as  exhortations  which 
it  is  wise  to  follow.  These  are  Rejoice,  Reflect, 
Remember.  Rejoice — the  fitting  gladness  of  youth; 
reflect— the  solemn  thought  that  will  guard  the  glad- 
ness from  stain;  remember — the  religion  which  will 
make  those  things  ever  last. 

First  of  all  '  Rejoice.'  Do  as  you  like,  for  that  is  the 
English  translation  of  the  words,  'Walk  in  the  ways 
of  thine  heart  and  in  the  sight  of  thine  eyes.'  Buoy- 
antly and  cheerfully  follow  the  inclinations  and  the 
desires  which  are  stamped  upon  your  nature  and  belong 
to  your  time  of  life.  All  young  things  are  joyful,  from 
the  lamb  in  the  pastures  upwards,  and  are  meant  to 
be  so.  The  mere  bounding  sense  of  physical  strength 
which  leads  so  many  of  you  young  men  astray  is  a 
good  thing  and  a  blessed  thing — a  blessing  to  be  thank- 
ful for  and  to  cherish.  Your  smooth  cheeks,  so  unlike 
those  of  old  age,  are  only  an  emblem  of  the  com- 
parative freedom  from  care  which  belongs  to  your 
happy  condition.  Your  memories  are  not  yet  like 
some — a  book  written  within  and  without  with  the 
records  of  mourning  and  disappointment  and  crosses. 
There   are    in   all   probability  long  years  stretching 


394  ECCLESIASTES  [ch.  xi. 

before  you,  instead  of  a  narrow  strip  of  barren  sand, 
before  you  come  to  the  great  salt  sea  that  is  going  to 
swallow  you  up,  as  is  the  case  with  some  of  us.  Chris- 
tianity looks  with  complacency  on  your  gladness,  and 
does  not  mean  to  clip  the  wing  of  one  white-winged 
pleasure,  or  to  breathe  one  glimmer  of  blackness  on 
your  atmosphere.  You  are  meant  to  be  glad,  but  it  is 
gladness  in  a  far  higher  sense  that  I  want  to  secure 
for  you,  or  rather  to  make  you  secure  for  yourselves. 
God  delights  in  the  prosperity  and  light-hearted  buoy- 
ancy of  His  children,  especially  of  His  young  children. 
Ah!  but  I  know  there  are  young  lives  over  which 
poverty  or  ill-health  or  sorrows  of  one  kind  or  another 
have  cast  a  gloom  as  incongruous  to  your  time  of  life 
as  snow  in  the  garden  in  the  spring,  that  pinches  the 
crocuses  and  weighs  down  young  green  beech-leaves, 
would  be.  And  if  I  am  speaking  to  any  young  man  or 
young  woman  at  this  time  who  by  reason  of  painful 
outward  circumstances  has  had  but  a  chilling  spring 
and  youth,  I  would  say  to  them,  'don't  lose  heart'; 
a  cloudy  morning  often  breaks  into  a  perfect  day.  It 
is  good  for  a  man  to  have  to  'bear  the  yoke  in  his 
youth,'  and  if  you  miss  joy,  you  may  get  grace  and 
strength  and  patience,  which  will  be  a  blessing  to  you 
all  your  days.  For  all  that,  the  ordinary  course  of 
things  is  that  the  young  should  be  glad,  and  that  the 
young  life  should  be  as  the  rippling  brook  in  the  sun- 
shine. I  want  to  leave  upon  your  minds  this  impres- 
sion, that  it  is  all  right  and  all  in  the  order  of  God's 
providence,  who  means  every  one  of  you  to  rejoice  in 
the  days  of  your  youth.  The  text  says  further, '  Walk 
in  the  ways  of  thine  heart.'  That  sounds  very  like  the 
unwholesome  teaching, '  Follow  nature ;  do  as  you  like  ; 
let  passions  and  tastes  and  inclinations  be  your  guides.' 


V.9]  A  NEW  YEAR'S  SERMON  395 

Well,  that  needs  to  be  set  round  with  a  good  many 
guards  to  prevent  it  becoming  a  doctrine  of  devils.  But 
for  all  that,  I  wish  you  to  notice  that  that  has  a  great 
and  a  religious  side  to  it.  You  have  come  into  posses- 
sion of  this  mystical  life  of  yours,  a  possession  which 
requires  that  you  must  choose  what  kind  of  life  you 
will  follow.  Every  one  has  this  awful  prerogative  of 
beiug  able  to  walk  in  the  way  of  their  heart.  You 
have  to  answer  for  the  kind  of  way  that  is,  and  the 
kind  of  heart  out  of  which  it  has  come.  But  I  want 
to  go  to  more  important  things,  and  so  with  a  clear 
understanding  that  the  joy  of  youth  is  all  right  and 
legitimate,  that  you  are  intended  to  be  glad,  and  to 
feel  the  physical  and  intellectual  spring  and  buoyancy 
of  early  days,  let  us  go  on  to  the  next  thing.  '  Rejoice,' 
9a3^s  my  text,  and  it  adds,  '  Reflect.'  It  is  one  of  the 
blessings  of  your  time  of  life,  my  young  friends,  that 
you  do  not  do  much  of  that.  It  is  one  of  your  happy 
immunities  that  you  are  not  yet  in  the  habit  of  looking 
at  life  as  a  whole,  and  considering  actions  and  con- 
sequences. Keep  that  spontaneity  as  long  as  you  can ; 
it  is  a  good  thing  to  keep.  But  for  all  that,  do  not 
forget  this  awful  thing,  that  it  may  turn  to  exaggera- 
tion and  excess,  and  that  it  needs,  like  all  other  good 
things,  to  be  guarded  and  rightly  used.  And  so, 
'  Rejoice,'  and  '  walk  in  the  sight  of  thine  eyes ' ;  but — 
'know  that  for  all  these  things  God  will  bring  thee 
to  judgment.'  Well,  now,  is  that  thought  to  come  in 
(I  was  going  to  say,  like  a  mourning-coach  driven 
through  a  wedding  procession)  to  kill  the  joys  we 
have  been  seeming  to  receive  from  the  former  words  ? 
Are  we  taking  back  all  that  we  have  been  giving,  and 
giving  out  instead  something  that  will  make  them  all 
cower  and  be  quiet,  like  the  singing  birds  that  stop 


396  ECCLESIASTES  [ch.xi. 

their  singing  and  hide  in  the  leaves  when  they  see  the 
kite  in  the  sky  ?  No,  there  is  no  need  for  anything  of 
the  sort.  '  For  all  these  things  God  will  bring  thee  to 
judgment':  that  is  not  the  thought  that  kills,  but 
that  purifies  and  ennobles.  Regard  being  had  to  the 
opinions  expressed  at  various  points  in  the  earlier 
portion  of  this  Book,  we  may  be  allowed  to  think  of 
this  testimony  as  having  reference  to  the  perpetual 
judgment  that  is  going  on  in  this  world  always  over 
every  man's  life.  A  great  German  thinker  has  it,  in 
reference  to  the  history  of  nations,  that  the  history  of 
the  world  is  the  judgment  of  the  world,  and  although 
that  is  not  true  if  it  is  a  denial  of  a  physical  day  of 
judgment,  it  is  true  in  a  very  profound  and  solemn 
sense  with  regard  to  the  daily  life  of  every  man,  that 
whether  there  Be  a  judgment-seat  beyond  the  grave  or 
not,  and  whether  this  Preacher  knew  anything  about 
that  or  no,  there  is  going  on  through  the  whole  of 
a  man's  life,  and  evolving  itself,  this  solemn  convic- 
tion, that  we  are  to  pass  away  from  this  present  life. 
All  our  days  are  knit  together  as  one  whole.  Yester- 
day is  the  parent  of  to-day,  and  to-day  is  the  parent  of 
all  the  to-morrows.  The  meaning  and  the  deepest 
consequence  of  man's  life  is  that  no  feeling,  no  thought 
that  flits  across  the  mirror  of  his  life  and  heart  dies 
utterly,  leaving  nothing  behind  it.  But  rather  the 
metaphor  of  the  Apostle  is  the  true  one,  '  That  which 
thou  sowest,  that  shalt  thou  also  reap.'  All  your  life 
a  seed-time,  all  your  life  a  harvest-time  too,  for  the 
seed  which  I  sow  to-day  is  the  seed  which  I  have 
reaped  from  all  my  former  sowings,  and  so  cause  and 
consequence  go  rolling  on  in  life  in  extricable  entangle- 
ment, issuing  out  in  this,  that  whatever  a  man  does 
lives  on  in  him,  and  that  each  moment  inherits  the 


V.9]  A  NEW  YEAR'S  SERMON  397 

whole  consequence  of  his  former  life.  And  now,  you 
young  men  and  women,  you  boys  and  girls,  mind  !  this 
seed-time  is  the  one  that  will  be  most  powerful  in  your 
lives,  and  there  is  a  judgment  you  do  not  need  to  die  to 
meet.  If  you  are  idle  at  school,  you  will  never  learn 
Latin  when  you  go  to  business.  If  you  are  frivolous 
in  your  youth,  if  you  stain  your  souls  and  soil  your 
lives  by  outward  coarse  sin  here  in  Manchester  in  your 
young  days,  there  will  be  a  taint  about  you  all  your 
lives.  You  cannot  get  rid  of  that  brave  law  that 
'  Whatever  a  man  sows,  that,  thirtyfold,  sixtyfold,  an 
hundredfold,  that  shall  he  also  reap ' — the  same  kind, 
but  infinitely  multiplied  in  quantity.  Let  me  there- 
fore name  some  of  the  ways  in  which  your  joys  or 
pleasures,  as  lads,  as  boys  and  girls,  as  growing  young 
.  men  and  women,  will  bring  you  to  judgment.  Health, 
that  is  one ;  position,  that  is  two ;  reputation,  that  is 
three ;  character,  that  is  four.  Did  you  ever  see  them 
build  one  of  those  houses  they  make  in  some  parts 
of  the  country,  with  concrete  instead  of  stones  ?  Take 
a  spadeful  of  the  mud,  and  put  it  into  a  frame  on  the 
wall.  When  it  is  dry,  take  away  the  frame  and  the 
supports,  and  it  hardens  into  rock.  You  take  your 
single  deeds — the  mud  sometimes,  young  men! — pop 
them  on  the  wall,  and  think  no  more  about  it.  Ay, 
but  they  stop  there  and  harden  there,  and  lo !  a  char- 
acter— a  house  for  your  soul  to  live  in — health,  position, 
memory,  capacity,  and  all  that.  If  you  have  not  done 
certain  things  which  you  ought  to  have  done,  you  will 
never  be  able  to  do  them,  and  there  are  the  materials 
for  a  judgment.  That  is  going  on  every  moment,  and 
especially  is  it  going  on  in  the  region  of  your  pleasures* 
If  they  are  unworthy,  you  are  unworthy ;  if  they  are 
gross,  and  coarse,  and  low,  and  animal,  they  are  drag- 


398  ECCLESIASTES  [ch.xi. 

ging  you  down ;  if  they  are  frivolous  and  foolish,  they 
are  making  you  a  poor  butterfly  of  a  creature  that  is 
worth  nothing  and  will  be  of  no  good  to  anybody ;  if 
they  are  pure,  and  chaste,  and  lofty,  and  virginal  and 
white,  they  will  make  your  souls  good  and  gracious 
and  tender  with  the  tenderness  and  beauty  of  God. 

But  that  is  not  all.  I  am  not  going  to  travel  beyond 
the  limits  of  this  present  life  with  any  words  of  mine, 
but  as  I  read  this  final  conclusion  in  this  Book  of 
Ecclesiastes,  I  think  I  can  perceive  that  the  doubts  and 
the  scepticisms  about  a  future  life,  and  the  difference 
between  a  man  and  a  beast  which  are  spoken  of  in  the 
earlier  chapters,  have  all  been  overcome,  and  the  clear 
conviction  of  the  writer  is  expressed  in  these  twofold 
great  sayings :  '  The  spirit  shall  return  unto  God  who 
gave  it,  and  the  words  with  which  He  stamps  all  His 
message  upon  our  hearts,  the  final  words  of  His  book ' ; 
*God  shall  bring  every  work  into  judgment  with 
every  secret  thing.'  And  I  come  to  you  and  say, 
'  I  suppose  you  believe  in  a  state  of  retribution  be- 
yond ? '  I  suppose  that  most  of  the  young  folk  I  am 
speaking  to  now  at  all  events  believe  that  '  Thou 
wilt  come  to  be  our  judge,'  as  the  Te  Deum  has  it ;  and 
that  it  is  this  same  personal  self  of  mine  that  is  to 
stand  there  who  is  sitting  here  ?  God  shall  bring  thee 
into  judgment.  Never  mind  what  is  to  come  of  the 
body,  the  quivering,  palpitating,  personal  centre.  The 
very  same  self  that  I  know  myself  to  be  will  be  carried 
there.  Now,  take  that  with  you  and  lay  it  to  heart, 
and  let  it  have  a  bearing  on  your  pleasure.  It  will  kill 
nothing  that  deserves  to  live,  it  will  take  no  real  joy 
out  of  a  man's  life.  It  will  only  strain  out  the  poison 
that  would  kill  you.  You  turn  that  thought  upon 
your  heart,  my  friends.    Is  it  like  a  policeman's  bull's- 


V.  9]  A  NEW  YEAR'S  SERMON  399 

eye  turned  upon  a  lot  of  bad  characters  hiding  under  a 
railway  arch  in  the  corner  there  ?  If  so,  the  sooner 
you  get  rid  of  the  pleasures  and  inclinations  that  slink 
away  when  that  beam  of  light  strikes  their  ugly  faces, 
the  better  for  yourselves  and  for  your  lives.  *  Rejoice 
in  the  way  of  thine  heart  and,  that  thy  joy  may  be 
pure,  know  that  for  all  this  God  will  bring  thee  into 
judgment.' 

And  now  my  last  word,  'Remember  God,'  says  my 
text.  The  former  two  sayings,  if  taken  by  themselves, 
would  make  a  very  imperfect  guide  to  life.  Self- 
indulgence  regulated  by  the  thought  of  retribution  is 
a  very  low  kind  of  life  after  all.  There  is  something 
better  in  this  world,  and  that  is  work ;  something 
higher,  and  that  is  duty ;  something  nobler  than  self- 
indulgence,  and  that  is  self-sacrifice.  And  so  no  re- 
ligion worthy  the  name  contents  itself  by  saying  to 
a  man,  '  Be  good  and  you  will  be  glad ' ;  but,  '  Never 
mind  whether  you  are  glad ;  be  good  at  any  rate,  and 
such  gladness  as  is  good  for  you  will  come  to  you,  and 
you  can  want  the  rest.'  '  Remember  thy  Creator  in  the 
days  of  thy  youth.'  Recall  God  to  your  thoughts,  and 
keep  Him  in  your  mind  all  the  day  long.  That  is  won- 
derfully unlike  your  life,  is  it  not?  Remember  thy 
Creator ;  shift  the  centre  of  your  life.  What  I  have 
been  saying  might  be  true  of  a  man,  the  centre  of 
whose  life  was  himself,  and  such  a  man  is  next  door  to 
a  devil,  for,  I  suppose,  the  definition  of  devil  is  '  self- 
engrossed  still,'  and  whosoever  lives  for  himself  is  dead. 
Don't  let  the  earth  be  the  centre  of  your  system,  but 
the  sun.  Do  not  live  to  yourselves,  or  your  pleasures 
will  all  be  ignoble  and  creeping,  but  live  to  God.  *  Re- 
member.' Well,  then,  you  and  I  know  a  good  deal  more 
about  God  than  the  writer  of  the  Book  of  Ecclesiastes 


400  ECCLESIASTES  [ch.xi. 

did — both  about  what  He  is  and  how  to  remember 
Him.  I  am  not  going  to  content  myself  by  taking  his 
point  of  view,  but  I  must  take  a  far  higher  and  a 
far  better  one.  If  he  had  been  here  he  would  have 
said  '  Remember  God.'  He  would  have  said,  •  Look  at 
God  in  Jesus  Christ,  and  trust  Him  and  love  Him ;  go  to 
Him  as  your  Saviour,  and  take  all  the  burden  of  your 
past  sin  and  lay  it  upon  His  merciful  shoulders,  and 
for  His  dear  sake  look  for  forgiveness  and  cleans- 
ing ;  and  then  for  His  dear  sake  live  to  serve  and  bless 
Him.  Never  mind  about  yourself,  and  do  not  think 
much  about  your  gladness.  Follow  in  the  footsteps  of 
Him  who  has  shown  us  that  the  highest  joy  is  to  give 
oneself  utterly  away.  Love  Jesus  Christ  and  trust 
Him  and  serve  Him,  and  that  will  make  all  your  glad- 
ness permanent.'  There  is  one  thing  I  want  to  teach 
you.  Look  at  that  description,  or  rather  read  when 
you  go  home  the  description  which  follows  my  text,  of 
that  wretched  old  man  who  has  got  no  hope  in  God  and 
no  joy,  feeble  in  body,  going  down  to  the  grave,  and 
dying  out  at  last.  That  is  what  rejoicing  in  the  days 
of  thy  youth,  and  walking  in  the  ways  of  thine  own 
heart,  come  to  when  you  do  not  remember  God.  There 
is  nothing  more  miserable  on  the  face  of  this  earth 
than  an  ill-conditioned  old  man,  who  is  ill-conditioned 
because  he  has  lost  his  early  joys  and  early  strength, 
and  has  got  nothing  to  make  up  for  them.  How  many 
of  your  joys,  my  dear  young  friends,  will  last  when  old 
age  comes  to  you?  How  many  of  them  will  survive 
when  your  eye  is  no  longer  bright,  and  your  hand  no 
longer  strong,  and  your  foot  no  longer  fleet?  How 
many  of  them,  young  woman  !  when  the  light  is  out  of 
your  eye,  and  the  beauty  and  freshness  out  of  your 
face  and  figure,   when   you    are  no  longer   able  for 


V.9]  A  NEW  YEAR'S  SERMON  401 

parties,  when  it  is  no  longer  a  pastime  to  read  novels, 
and  when  the  ballroom  is  not  exactly  the  place  for  you, 
— how  many  of  your  pleasures  will  survive  ?  Young 
man!  how  many  of  yours  will  last  when  you  can  no 
longer  go  into  dissipation,  and  stomach  and  system 
will  no  longer  stand  fast  living,  nor  athletics,  and  the 
like?  Oh!  let  me  beseech  thee,  go  to  the  ant  and  con- 
sider her  ways,  who  in  the  summer  layeth  up  for  the 
winter ;  and  do  ye  likewise  in  the  days  of  your  youth, 
store  up  for  yourselves  that  which  knows  no  change 
and  laughs  at  the  decay  of  flesh  and  sense.  A  thousand 
motives  coincide  and  press  on  my  memory  if  I  had 
words  and  time  to  speak  them.  Let  me  beseech  you — 
especially  you  young  men  and  women  of  this  congre- 
gation, of  some  of  whom  I  may  venture  to  speak  as 
a  father  to  his  children,  whom  I  have  seen  growing  up, 
as  it  were,  from  your  mothers'  arms,  and  the  rest  of  you 
whom  I  do  not  know  so  well — Oh !  carry  away  with  you 
this  beseeching  entreaty  of  mine  at  the  end.  Love  Jesus 
Christ  and  trust  to  Him  as  your  Saviour ;  serve  Him 
as  your  Captain  and  your  King  in  the  days  of  your 
youth.  Do  not  offer  Him  the  fag  end  of  a  life — the  last 
inch  of  the  candle  that  is  burning  down  into  the 
socket.  Do  it  now,  for  the  moments  are  flying,  and 
you  may  never  have  Him  offered  to  you  any  more.  If 
there  is  any  softening,  any  touch  of  conscience  in  your 
heart,  yield  to  the  impulse  and  do  not  stifle  it.  Take 
Christ  for  your  Saviour,  take  Him  now — •  Now  is  the 
accepted  time,  now  is  the  day  of  salvation.' 


2c 


THE  CONCLUSION  OF  THE  MATTER 

'  Remember  now  thy  Creator  in  the  days  of  thy  youth,  while  the  evil  days  come 
not,  nor  the  years  draw  nigh,  when  thou  shalt  say,  I  have  no  pleasure  in  them ; 
2.  While  the  sun,  or  the  light,  or  the  moon,  or  the  stars,  be  not  darkened,  nor  the 
clouds  return  after  the  rain :  3.  In  the  day  when  the  keepers  of  the  house  shall 
tremble,  and  the  strong  men  shall  bow  themselves,  and  the  grinders  cease  because 
they  are  few,  and  those  that  look  out  of  the  windows  be  darkened,  4.  And  the 
doors  shall  be  shut  in  the  streets,  when  the  sound  of  the  grinding  is  low,  and  he 
shall  rise  up  at  the  voice  of  the  bird,  and  all  the  daughters  of  musick  shall  bo 
brought  low ;  5.  Also  when  they  shall  be  afraid  of  that  which  is  high,  and  fears 
shall  be  in  the  way,  and  the  almond  tree  shall  flourish,  and  the  grasshopper  sliall 
be  a  burden,  and  desire  shall  fail :  because  man  goeth  to  his  long  home,  and  the 
moux'ners  go  about  the  streets :  6.  Or  ever  the  silver  cord  be  loosed,  or  the  golden 
bowl  be  broken,  or  the  pitcher  be  broken  at  the  fountain,  or  the  wheel  broken  at 
the  cistern,  7.  Then  shall  the  dust  return  to  the  earth  as  it  was :  and  the  spirit 
shall  return  unto  God  who  gave  it.  .  .  .  13.  Let  us  hear  the  conclusion  of  the 
whole  matter :  Fear  God,  and  keep  His  commandments :  for  this  is  the  whole  duty 
of  man.  14.  For  God  shall  bring  every  work  into  judgment,  with  every  secret 
thing,  whether  it  be  good,  or  whether  it  be  evil.'— Eccles.  xii.  1-7, 13, 14. 

The  Preacher  has  passed  in  review  '  all  the  works  that 
are  done  under  the  sun,'  and  has  now  reached  the  end 
of  his  long  investigation.  It  has  been  a  devious  path. 
He  has  announced  many  provisional  conclusions,  which 
are  not  intended  for  ultimate  truths,  but  rather  re- 
present the  progress  of  the  soul  towards  the  final, 
sufficient  ground  and  object  of  belief  and  aim  of  all 
life,  even  God  Himself.  '  Vanity  of  vanities '  is  a  cheer- 
less creed  and  a  half-truth.  Its  completion  lies  in 
being  driven,  by  recognising  vanity  as  stamped  on  all 
creatures,  to  clasp  the  one  reality.  '  All  is  vanity '  apart 
from  God,  but  He  is  fullness,  and  possessed  and  enjoyed 
and  endured  in  Him,  life  is  not '  a  striving  after  wind.' 
Leave  out  this  last  section,  and  this  book  of  so-called 
•Wisdom'  is  one-sided  and  therefore  error,  as  is 
modern  pessimism,  which  only  says  more  feebly  what 
the  Preacher  had  said  long  ago.  Take  the  rest  of  the 
book  as  the  autobiography  of  a  seeker  after  reality, 
and  this  last  section  as  his  declaration  of  where  he  had 

402 


vs.  1-7,13,14]     THE  CONCLUSION  403 

found  it,  and  all  the  previous  parts  fall  into  their  right 
places. 

Our  passage  omits  the  first  portion  of  the  closing 
section,  which  is  needed  in  order  to  set  the  counsel  to 
remember  the  Creator  in  its  right  relation.  Observe 
that,  properly  rendered,  the  advice  in  verse  1  is  '  re- 
member also,'  and  that  takes  us  back  to  the  end  of  the 
preceding  chapter.  There  the  young  are  exhorted  to 
enjoy  the  bright,  brief  blossom-time  of  their  youth, 
withal  keeping  the  consciousness  of  responsibility  for 
its  employment.  In  earlier  parts  of  the  book  similar 
advice  had  been  given,  but  based  on  different  grounds. 
Here  religion  and  full  enjoyment  of  youthful  buoyancy 
and  delight  in  fresh,  unhackneyed,  homely  pleasures  are 
proclaimed  to  be  perfectly  compatible.  The  Preacher 
had  no  idea  that  a  devout  young  man  or  woman  was 
to  avoid  pleasures  natural  to  their  age.  Only  he  wished 
their  joy  to  be  pure,  and  the  stern  law  that '  whatsoever 
a  man  soweth  that  shall  he  also  reap'  to  be  kept  in 
mind.  Subject  to  that  limitation,  or  rather  that  guiding 
principle,  it  is  not  only  allowable,  but  commanded,  to 
'put  away  sorrow  and  evil.'  Young  people  are  often 
liable  to  despondent  moods,  which  come  over  them  like 
morning  mists,  and  these  have  to  be  fought  against. 
The  duty  of  joy  is  the  more  imperative  on  the  young 
because  youth  flies  so  fast,  or,  as  the  Preacher  says,  'is 
vanity.' 

Now  these  advices  sound  very  like  the  base  incite- 
ments to  sensual  and  unworthy  delight  which  poets  of 
the  meaner  sort,  and  some,  alas !  of  the  nobler  in  their 
meaner  moments,  have  presented.  But  this  writer  is 
no  teacher  of  '  Gather  ye  rosebuds  while  ye  may,'  and 
wicked  trash  of  that  sort.  Therefore  he  brings  side  by 
side  with  these  advices  the  other  of  our  passage.    That 


404  ECCLESIASTES  [ch.  xii. 

•also'  saves  the  former  from  being  misused,  just  as  the 
thought  of  judgment  did. 

That  possible  combination  of  hearty,  youthful  glee 
and  true  religion  is  the  all-important  lesson  of  this 
passage.  The  word  for  Creator  is  in  the  plural  num- 
ber, according  to  the  Hebrew  idiom,  which  thereby 
expresses  supremacy  or  excellence.  The  name  of 
'  Creator '  carries  us  back  to  Genesis,  and  suggests  one 
great  reason  for  the  injunction.  It  is  folly  to  forget 
Him  on  whom  we  depend  for  being ;  it  is  ingratitude 
to  forget,  in  the  midst  of  the  enjoyments  of  our  bright, 
early  days,  Him  to  whom  we  owe  them  all.  The  advice 
is  specially  needed ;  for  youth  has  so  much,  that  is 
delightful  in  its  novelty,  to  think  about,  and  the  world, 
on  both  its  innocent  and  its  sinful  side,  appeals  to  it  so 
strongly,  that  the  Creator  is  only  too  apt  to  be  crowded 
out  of  view  by  His  works.  The  temptation  of  the 
young  is  to  live  in  the  present.  Reflection  belongs  to 
older  heads ;  spontaneous  action  is  more  characteristic 
of  youth.  Therefore,  they  specially  need  to  make 
efforts  to  bring  clearly  to  their  thoughts  both  the 
unseen  future  and  Him  who  is  invisible.  The  advice  is 
specially  suitable  for  them ;  for  what  is  begun  early  is 
likely  to  last  and  be  strong. 

It  is  hard  for  older  men,  stiffened  into  habits,  and 
with  less  power  and  love  of  taking  to  new  courses,  to 
turn  to  God,  if  they  have  forgotten  Him  in  early  days. 
Conversion  is  possible  at  any  age,  but  it  is  less  likely 
as  life  goes  on.  The  most  of  men  who  are  Christians 
have  become  so  in  the  formative  period  between  boy- 
hood and  thirty.  After  that  age,  the  probabilities  of 
radical  change  diminish  rapidly.  So,  '  Remember  .  .  . 
in  the  days  of  thy  youth,'  or  the  likelihood  is  that  you 
will  never  remember.    To  say,  'I  mean   to  have  my 


vs.  1-7, 13,14]     THE  CONCLUSION  405 

fling,  and  I  shall  turn  over  a  new  leaf  when  I  am  older,' 
is  to  run  dreadful  risk.  Perhaps  you  will  never  be 
older.  Probably,  if  you  are,  you  will  not  want  to  turn 
the  leaf.  If  you  do,  what  a  shame  it  is  to  plan  to  give 
God  only  the  dregs  of  life!  You  need  Him  quite  as 
much,  if  not  more,  now^  in  the  flush  of  youth  as  in  old 
age.  Why  should  yoft  rob  yourself  of  years  of  blessing, 
and  lay  up  bitter  memories  of  wasted  and  polluted 
moments  ?  If  ever  you  turn  to  God  in  your  older  days, 
nothing  will  be  so  painful  as  the  remembrance  that 
you  forgot  Him  so  long. 

The  advice  is  further  important,  because  it  presents 
the  only  means  of  delivering  life  from  the  'vanity' 
which  the  Preacher  found  in  it  all.  Therefore  he  sets 
it  at  the  close  of  his  meditations.  This  is  the  practical 
outcome  of  them  all.  Forget  God,  and  life  is  a  desert. 
Remember  Him,  and  '  the  desert  will  rejoice  and 
blossom  as  the  rose.' 

The  verses  from  the  middle  of  verse  1  to  the  end  of 
verse  7  enforce  the  exhortation  by  the  consideration  of 
what  will  certainly  follow  youth,  and  advise  remem- 
brance of  the  Creator  before  that  future  comes.  So 
much  is  clear,  but  the  question  of  the  precise  mean- 
ing of  these  verses  is  much  too  large  for  discussion 
here.  The  older  explanation  takes  them  for  an 
allegory  representing  the  decay  of  bodily  and  mental 
powers  in  old  age,  whilst  others  think  that  in  them  the 
advance  of  death  is  presented  under  the  image  of  an 
approaching  storm.  Wright,  in  his  valuable  com- 
mentary, regards  the  description  of  the  gradual  waning 
away  of  life  in  old  age,  in  the  first  verses,  as  being  set 
forth  under  images  drawn  from  the  closing  days  of  the 
Palestinian  winter,  which  are  dreaded  as  peculiarly 
unhealthy,   while  verse  46    and    verse   5  present   the 


406  ECCLESIASTES  [ch.xi; 

advent  of  spring,  and  contrast  the  new  life  in  animal.s 
and  plants  with  the  feebleness  of  the  man  dying  in  hi.^ 
chamber  and  unable  to  eat.  Still  another  explanation 
is  that  the  whole  is  part  of  a  dirge,  to  be  taken  liter- 
ally, and  describing  the  mourners  in  house  and  garden. 
I  venture,  though  with  some  hesitation,  to  prefer,  on 
the  whole,  the  old  allegorical  theory,  for  reasons  which 
it  would  be  impossible  to  condense  here.  It  is  by  no 
means  free  from  difficulty,  but  is,  as  I  think,  less  difficult 
than  any  of  its  rivals. 

Interpreters  who  adopt  it  differ  somewhat  in  the 
explanation  of  particular  details,  but,  on  the  whole, 
one  can  see  in  most  of  the  similes  sufficient  correspond- 
ence for  a  poet,  however  foreign  to  modern  taste 
such  a  long-drawn  and  minute  allegory  may  be. 
'The  keepers  of  the  house'  are  naturally  the  arms; 
the  'strong  men,'  the  legs;  the  ' grinding  women,' the 
teeth;  the  'women  who  look  out  at  the  windows,' 
the  eyes;  'the  doors  shut  towards  the  street,'  either 
the  lips  or,  more  probably,  the  ears.  '  The  sound  of  the 
grinding,'  which  is  '  low,'  is  by  some  taken  to  mean  the 
feeble  mastication  of  toothless  gums,  in  which  case 
the  'doors'  are  the  lips,  and  the  figure  of  the  mill  is 
continued.  'Arising  at  the  voice  of  the  bird'  may 
describe  the  light  sleep  or  insomnia  of  old  age;  but, 
according  to  some,  with  an  alteration  of  rendering 
('  The  voice  riseth  into  a  sparrow's '),  it  is  the  '  childish 
treble'  of  Shakespeare.  The  former  is  the  more 
probable  rendering  and  reference.  The  allegory  is 
dropped  in  verse  5a,  which  describes  the  timid  walk  of 
the  old,  but  is  resumed  in  'the  almond  trees  shall 
flourish ' ;  that  is,  the  hair  is  blanched,  as  the  almond 
blossom,  which  is  at  first  delicate  pink,  but  fades  into 
white.    The  next  clause  has  an  appropriate  meaning  in 


vs.  1-7, 13, 14]     THE  CONCLUSION  407 

the  common  translation,  as  vividly  expressing  the  loss 
of  strength,  but  it  is  doubtful  whether  the  verb  here 
used  ever  means  *  to  be  a  burden.'  The  other  explana- 
tions of  the  clause  are  all  strained.  The  next  clause  is 
best  taken,  as  in  the  Revised  Version,  as  describing  the 
failure  of  appetite,  which  the  stimulating  caper-berry 
is  unable  to  rouse.  All  this  slow  decay  is  accounted 
for,  'because  the  man  is  going  to  his  long  home,'  and 
already  the  poet  sees  the  mourners  gathering  for  the 
funeral  procession. 

The  connection  of  the  long-drawn-out  picture  of 
senile  decay  with  the  advice  to  remember  the  Creator 
needs  no  elucidation.  That  period  of  failing  powers  is 
no  time  to  begin  remembering  God.  How  dreary,  too, 
it  will  be,  if  God  is  not  the  'strength  of  the  heart,' 
when  '  heart  and  flesh  fail ' !  Therefore  it  is  plain 
common  sense,  in  view  of  the  future,  not  to  put  off  to 
old  age  what  will  bless  youth,  and  keep  the  advent  of 
old  age  from  being  wretched. 

Verses  6  and  7  still  more  stringently  enforce  the 
precept  by  pointing,  not  to  the  slow  approach,  but 
to  the  actual  arrival  of  death.  If  a  future  of  possible 
weakness  and  gradual  creeping  in  on  us  of  death  is 
reason  for  the  exhortation,  much  more  is  the  certainty 
that  the  crash  of  dissolution  will  come.  The  allegory 
is  partially  resumed  in  these  verses.  The  '  golden  bowl ' 
is  possibly  the  head,  and,  according  to  some,  the  'silver 
cord '  is  the  spinal  marrow,  while  others  think  rather 
of  the  bowl  or  lamp  as  meaning  the  body,  and  the  cord 
the  soul  which,  as  it  were,  holds  it  up.  The  '  pitcher '  is 
the  heart,  and  the  'wheel'  the  organs  of  respiration. 
Be  this  as  it  may,  the  general  thought  is  that  death 
comes,  shivering  the  precious  reservoir  of  light,  and 
putting  an  end  to  drawing  of  life  from  the  Fountain  of 


408  ECCLESIASTES  [ch.  xii. 

bodily  life.  Surely  these  are  weighty  reasons  for  the 
Preacher's  advice.  Surely  it  is  well  for  young  hearts 
sometimes  to  remember  the  end,  and  to  ask,  'What 
will  ye  do  in  the  end  ? '  and  to  do  before  the  end  what 
is  so  hard  to  begin  doing  at  the  end,  and  so  needful  to 
have  done  if  the  end  is  not  to  be  worse  than  '  vanity.' 

The  collapse  of  the  body  is  not  the  end  of  the  man, 
else  the  whole  force  of  the  argument  in  the  preceding 
verses  would  disappear.  If  death  is  annihilation,  what 
reason  is  there  for  seeking  God  before  it  comes  ?  There- 
fore verse  7  is  no  interpolation  to  bring  a  sceptical 
book  into  harmony  with  orthodox  Jewish  belief,  as 
some  commentators  affirm.  The  'contradiction'  be- 
tween it  and  Ecclesiastes  iii.  21  is  alleged  as  proof  of  its 
having  been  thus  added.  But  there  is  no  contradiction. 
The  former  passage  is  interrogative,  and,  like  all  the 
earlier  part  of  the  book,  sets  forth,  not  the  Preacher's 
ultimate  convictions,  but  a  phase  through  which  he 
passed  on  his  way  to  these.  It  is  because  man  is  two- 
fold, and  at  death  the  spirit  returns  to  its  divine  Giver, 
that  the  exhortation  of  verse  1  is  pressed  home  with 
such  earnestness. 

The  closing  verses  are  confidently  asserted  to  be,  like 
verse  7,  additions  in  the  interests  of  Jewish  '  orthodoxy.' 
But  Ecclesiastes  is  made  out  to  be  a  'sceptical  book' 
by  expelling  these  from  the  text,  and  then  the  character 
thus  established  is  taken  to  prove  that  they  are  not 
genuine.  It  is  a  remarkably  easy  but  not  very  logical 
process. 

'  The  end  of  the  matter '  when  all  is  heard,  is,  to  '  fear 
God  and  keep  His  commandments.'  The  inward  feeling 
of  reverent  awe  which  does  not  exclude  love,  and  the 
outward  life  of  conformity  to  His  will,  is  'the  whole 
duty  of  man,'  or  '  the  duty  of  every  man.'     And  that 


vs.  1-7, 13, 14]     THE  CONCLUSION  409 

plain  summary  of  all  that  men  need  to  know  for 
practical  guidance  is  enforced  by  the  consideration  of 
future  judgment,  which,  by  its  universal  sweep  and 
all-revealing  light,  must  mean  the  judgment  in  another 
life. 

Happy  they  who,  through  devious  mazes  of  thought 
and  act,  have  wandered  seeking  for  the  vision  of  any 
good,  and  having  found  all  to  be  vanity,  have  been  led 
at  last  to  rest,  like  the  dove  in  the  ark,  in  the  broad 
simplicity  of  the  truth  that  all  which  any  man  needs 
for  blessedness  in  the  buoyancy  of  fresh  youthful 
strength  and  in  the  feebleness  of  decaying  age,  in  the 
stress  of  life,  in  the  darkness  of  death,  and  in  the  day 
of  judgment,  is  to  'fear  God  and  keep  His  command- 
ments '  1  r 


Date  Due 

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4  DEC  18  • 

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BS491.M1617 

The  books  of  Esther,  Job,  Proverbs  and 

llllirillHIII^l  ml?,?,?'  Se-^inary-Speer  Library 


1    1012  00058  9020 


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